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More "Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then spoke to the following effect:—Sir, that the allowance of two quarts a-day is sufficient, and that to demand more is a wanton indulgence of appetite, is experimentally known, and, therefore, no more ought to be imposed upon ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... the people darkened With unfaithfulness. Yet shall they not with him take But of wilful heart his liberal grace forsake. Which will compel me against man for to make In my displeasure, and send plagues of correction Most grievous and sharp, his wanton lusts to slake, By water and fire, by sickness and infection Of pestilent sores, molesting his complexion; By troublous war, by dearth and painful scarceness, And after this life by an extreme heaviness. I will first begin with Adam for his lewdness ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to be pelted ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... triumphed openly had men spoken to me the words that I shall speak to thee — times when I had gladly said that all which men call holiness was but a mask for corruption and deceit, and should have rejoiced that the very monks themselves were forced to own to their own wanton disregard of their vows. My son, I see the shrinking and astonishment in thine eyes; but yet I would for a moment that thou couldst see with mine. I spoke awhile ago of the judgment of an angry God. Wherefore, thinkest thou, is it that His anger is so ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his restless endeavors, his partial and halting successes. The ante-room in which he had paused with Ferris was painted to look like a grape-arbor, where the vines sprang from the floor, and flourishing up the trellised walls, with many a wanton tendril and flaunting leaf, displayed their lavish clusters of white and purple all over the ceiling. It touched Ferris, when Don Ippolito confessed that this decoration had been the distraction of his own vacant moments, to ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... others it was not by carelessness; he was irritable and resentful; his malignity to Philips, whom he had first made ridiculous and then hated for being angry continued too long. Of his vain desire to make Bentley contemptible I never heard any adequate reason. He was sometimes wanton in his attacks, and before Chandos, Lady Wortley, and Hill, was mean in his retreat. The virtues which seem to have had most of his affection were liberality and fidelity of friendship, in which it does not appear that he was ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... that his mercy towards repentant women who washed his feet with their tears might not be taken as softness towards sin, came back from heaven to say in the Book of Revelation, that he will "cast into great tribulation" and "kill with death" wanton women and the men who visit them. Of these iniquities the compassionate Redeemer says, "Which things I also hate." Rulers cannot claim any consent or condonement of their regulation of vice from the Head of all human government, the King of kings, to whom ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... February 1865. As usual, all that could be of possible value to the enemy was destroyed and, by some accident, the town itself was burned. Sherman, like Sheridan, was much criticized for his methods of reducing opposition, but it does not seem that his "bummers" were guilty of wanton cruelty and destructiveness, at least in general, though the cavalry naturally gave more ground for the accusation than the main body of the army. And the methods of the Confederates had on occasion been somewhat similar. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... difficult access, and with such a frowning, grim, and formidable aspect. Who is it that has disguised it thus, with this false, pale, and ghostly countenance? There is nothing more airy, more gay, more frolic, and I had like to have said, more wanton. She preaches nothing but feasting and jollity; a melancholic anxious look shows that she does not inhabit there. Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers set chatting together, said to them,—[Plutarch, Treatise on Oracles which have ceased]—"Either ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the gathering cloud. Those insolent ladies are revelling in the land from which they have ousted their only brother; they are granting leases not worth a straw; they are riding the high horse; they are bringing up that cub (who set the big dog at me) in every wanton luxury. But wait a bit—wait a bit, my ladies; as sure as I live I ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... waste, in loss and wreck: Dryasdust could not have told me, had he tried. And then the breakages, damages still chargeable; the probable afterclap? For you cannot quite gratuitously tweak people by the nose, in your wanton humor, over your wine!—One willing man, or Most Christian Majesty, can at any time begin a quarrel; but there need always two or more to end ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... The king was too courteous and gallant a knight to refuse this request, and even made a pretty and right royal speech, intimating his desire to lose the wager. Then, after vespers, the guard passed fresh and warm into the king's chamber, a lady most dazzlingly white—most delicately wanton, with long tresses and velvet hands, filling out her dress at the least movement, for she was gracefully plump, with a laughing mouth, and eyes moist in advance, a woman to beautify hell, and whose first word had such cordial power that ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... Prospect. He is the Son of an honest, poor Soldier, by a Wife, grave, unmeaning, and innocent. Yet the Boy, (see the Power of connubial Simplicity) is so pretty, so genteel, and gay-spirited, that we have made him, and design'd him, our own, ever since he could totter, and waddle. The wanton Rogue is half Air: and every Motion he acts by has a Spring, like Pamela's when she threw down the Card-table. All this Quickness, however, is temper'd by a good-natur'd Modesty: so that the wildest of his Flights are thought rather diverting ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... inventor. But routine forced him out—into what?—into the moil and toil of fighting for offices, and there he has cut a poor figure indeed. You may say that he has had to spend his energy trying to find a chance to use his power. What a wanton waste of talent is that for a civilized nation! Wiley is another case of the creative mind harassed by the routineers. Judge Lindsey is another—a fine, constructive children's judge compelled to be a politician. And of our misuse ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... singing. This is my last evening with you. Do you think a woman has the right to be as gloriously beautiful as you are to-night? Do you think it's fair to the feelings of a poor wretched man, who adores her, and whom she, in mere wanton wickedness, is sending to the uttermost ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... could not have been more carefully kept. When the men came out to their daily work, all their spare moments were spent in polishing and cleaning every little tarnished or dingy spot. At first it used to seem to me like a wanton risk of life, with the vessel rearing and plunging so that we did not dare to stir on deck, to see them climb the tall masts, and cling there, scraping and oiling them, to bring out the veining of the wood. Perhaps it was partly as a discipline ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... fie, upon her; There's a language in her eye, her cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks, her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the cool of a cleft, sat he—majestical Pan! Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof; All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly—the curl Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw. "Halt, Pheidippides!"—halt I did, my brain of a whirl: "Hither to me! Why pale ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... traversed the land there was evidence of fierce combats and of wanton destruction of property; burning villages, fields of produce trodden in the earth, etcetera. Still further on I encountered long trains of wagons bearing supplies and ammunition to the front. As we advanced these were met by bullock-trains bearing wounded ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Against this evil large pecuniary interests were rather the reverse of a remedy. Accordingly, the Company's servants have ever since covered over the worst oppressions of the people under their government, and the most cruel and wanton ravages of all the neighboring countries, by holding out, and for a time actually realizing, additions of revenue to the territorial funds of the Company, and great quantities of valuable ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it matter? As I deem, We shall but follow as brave a dream As ever smiled a wanton May Over the ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... PILLAGE. Wanton and mostly iniquitous plunder. But an allowed ancient practice, both in this and other countries, as shown by the sea ordinances of France, and our black book ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... what has occupied my imagination since my childhood, what has always given me the feeling of seductive terror. A foolish apprehension! It will be a wanton game she will play with me, nothing more. She loves me, and she is good, a noble personality, incapable of a breach of faith. But it lies in her hands —if she wants to she can. What a temptation in ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... result from the interview, for to his mind the story was ended, and he had only to retire with the dignity still possible to a dishonoured man. To touch the note of pathos would be unworthy; to exert what influence might be left to him, a wanton cruelty. But he had heard such unexpected things, that it was not easy for him to remember how complete had seemed the severance between him and Sidwell. The charm of her presence was reasserting itself, and when avowal of continued love appeared so unmistakably in her troubled countenance, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... crab" is to roast a wild apple in the fire in order to throw it hissing hot into a bowl of nutbrown ale, into which had been put a toast with some spice and sugar. Puck describes one of his wanton pranks: ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... at last thou art! Ere bud to rounded blossom change; Thou wilt for wanton lips and heart Most false, thy ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... either party considers that it has gained the best ground, or finds it can surprise the other, the attack is made. They advance at once to close quarters, and the slaughter is consequently great, though the battle may be short. The prisoners of either sex are seldom spared, but slain on the spot with wanton cruelty. The dead are scalped, and he is considered the bravest person who bears the greatest number of scalps from the field. These are afterwards attached to his war dress, and worn as proofs of his prowess. The victorious ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... Hark ye: The queen your mother rounds apace. We shall Present our services to a fine new prince One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us, If we ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... removed elsewhere, he enjoyed enviable esteem from his superiors and the hatred and dislike of all others. Though inclined to court after the manner of the pillager who has captured a city, his boisterous addresses pleased the wanton matrons and, more naturally, the facile Cythereans of the music halls ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... round and looked hard at Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor, who blushed scarlet, and whose eyes filled with tears. . . . "The less said about the matter the better," continued the headmaster, "but I confess that it is difficult for me to understand how any one, however young, can be so hardened and so wanton as to behave in the callous and indecent way in which certain of you—I need not mention who—have behaved to-day. You have disgraced the school in the eyes of strangers; you have violated the laws ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... instant a much larger boat hove in sight. As she did so, a man standing in the stern-sheets was seen to lift a musket and fire at the gig: at the same moment an oar dropped from the hands of one of the crew, who sank down on the thwart; the gig, however, still coming on. It was a wanton act. The large boat pulled round, and before we could have brought one of our guns to bear on her she was again hidden behind the point. The captain, on seeing the occurrence, ordered the other boats to be got ready, intending to send them up in chase of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... courses of the streams of energy which pertain to youthful vigor and manhood?" To be destitute of that which may be described as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires of lust is madness and wanton folly, {418} but it can be done. To divert the currents of life and energy from blood and brain, from memory and muscle, in order to secrete it for the shambles of prostitution, is death to true manhood; but remember, it can be done! The generous liquid life may inspire the brain and blood with ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... like a virgin bride, The radiant morn resumed her orient pride; When wanton gales along the valleys play, 15 Breathe on each flower, and bear their sweets away; By Tigris' wandering waves he sat, and sung This useful lesson for the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... tower above its shore, (p. 308) Green rushes fringe its brim, And o'er its breast for evermore The wanton breezes skim. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... to Dr. Lee, and to many besides, that notwithstanding the extensive researches of Wodrow and others, there have died away in the silent lapse of time, or are still hovering over our cleuchs and glens, in the aspect of a dim and misty tradition, many instances of extreme cruelty and wanton oppression, exercised (during the reign of Charles II.) over the poor Covenanters, or rather Nonconformists, of the south and west counties of Scotland. In particular, although the whole district suffered, it was in the vale of the Nith, and in the hilly portion of the parish of Closeburn, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... unbending, and he himself combined an almost womanly gentleness with a quiet determination that unflinchingly faced all obstacles. With a high sense of personal honour, unassuming and even-tempered, he was only roused to anger by acts of oppression or wanton cruelty. Then his indignation, though not loud, was very real, and he acted with a promptitude which would hardly have been expected from his usually placid demeanour. A story is told of how one day sitting at table he saw through the window a man belabouring a woman. Without ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... during the war with Russia. In 1808, Admiral Cronstadt, the commander of the Swedish forces, who had hitherto proved himself a brave and patriotic officer, submitted to terms of capitulation and delivered over the forts to the Russians. History scarcely furnishes a parallel to such a wanton and unaccountable act of treachery. Cronstadt had fifteen hundred men, two frigates, and all the munitions of war to hold his position against any force that could be brought against him; while the Russians were reduced to great extremities, and, it is said, had ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... cathedral church of San Augustine, to whom the lucky gamblers were accustomed to dedicate a part of their winnings, that thus they might sanctify their unrighteous calling by bringing robbery to the saint for an offering. Poor saint! how much he and his priests have suffered by this wanton interference of the civil government in Church affairs—this prohibition of monte-playing in honor of the festival of San Augustine! There was much in this church to admire, and much of that gold displayed which gamblers are accustomed to lavish ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... the European governments in Borneo, punitive expeditions have been necessary from time to time in order to put a stop to wanton raiding and killing. In this respect the Ibans and some of the Klemantans have been the chief offenders; while the Kayans and Kenyahs have seldom given trouble, after once placing themselves under the established governments. In the Baram river, in which ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... But I think I am not bound to discover myself But we were friends again as we are always Cure of the King's evil, which he do deny altogether Duke of York and Mrs. Palmer did talk to one another very wanton First time I had given her leave to wear a black patch First time that ever I heard the organs in a cathedral Gentlewomen did hold up their heads to be kissed by the King Have her come not as a sister in any respect, but as a servant Have not known her this ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick, and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself "walking ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... labor, therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... these eyes of mine have never wandered, Still may they gleam with long forgotten light. Since in no wanton way my youth was squandered, Some sense of youth still clings to ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... superhuman) shape: their present conditions represented only the consequence of ancient faults. Any human being also, by reason of like faults, might hereafter be reduced to the same dumb state,—might be reborn as a reptile, a fish, a bird, or a beast of burden. The consequence of wanton cruelty to any animal might cause the perpetrator of that cruelty to be reborn as an animal of the same kind, destined to suffer the same cruel treatment. Who could even be sure that the goaded ox, the over-driven horse, or the slaughtered bird, had not formerly been ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... island with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honour by you—to act as these have done, this is not revolt—revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... juries and sought to get his victims hanged. It may be regarded as a cunning and cowardly attempt to shift part of the odium on to the Government. Certainly the prestige of the Cabinet now fell to zero. Ministers were held responsible for Braxfield's wanton vagaries, and were accused of luring English democrats into the meshes of the Scottish law. This last charge is absurd. As we have seen, the London police sought to stop Margarot, Sinclair, and Gerrald from going ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... our country down here is worth singing about like that!" continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodized with a dying fall, "My ain countree!" "When you take away from among us the fools and the rogues, and the lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the slatterns, and such like, there's cust few left to ornament a song with in ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... condition of James had been going from bad to worse. Besides resorting to antiquated feudal exactions,(166) he took to levying impositions on articles of commerce. But even these failed to make up the deficiency created in his exchequer by his wanton extravagance, and in 1610 he was obliged to apply to parliament. An attempt to make a composition with the king for feudal dues and to restrict his claim to levy impositions failed, and parliament was ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... around. Just as we began to climb the hill we saw three boys who came down the cleft of a brow on our left; one carried a fishing-rod, and the hats of all were braided with honeysuckles; they ran after one another as wanton as the wind. I cannot express what a character of beauty those few honeysuckles in the hats of the three boys gave to the place: what bower could they have come from? We walked up the hill, met two well-dressed travellers, the woman barefoot. Our little lads before they had gone far were joined ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... now, in Harlan's eyes—they were wanton—in them was concentrated all the hate and contempt that Harlan felt for him. But back of it all was that iron self-control that Deveny had seen in the man when he had faced him ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Tacitus, "in sleep, his nights in the duties or pleasures of life; where others toiled for fame he had lounged into it, and he had the reputation not, like most members of that profligate society, of a dissolute wanton, but of a trained master in luxury. A sort of careless ease, an entire absence of self-consciousness, added the charm of complete simplicity to all he said and did. Yet, as governor of Bithynia, and afterwards as consul, he showed himself a vigorous ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... who commanded the division next to ours, by a wanton excess of zeal in expecting an order to follow, would not permit any thing belonging to us to pass the bridge, for fear of impeding the march of his troops; and, as he received no order to march, we were thereby prevented from getting any ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... food, And water ever to my wildest thirst, I would desert you—think not but I would!— And seek another as I sought you first. But you are mobile as the veering air, And all your charms more changeful than the tide, Wherefore to be inconstant is no care: I have but to continue at your side. So wanton, light and false, my love, are you, I am most faithless when ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... distinguish mutilated forms writhing in agony, while ever and anon one and another rose convulsively from out the mass, endeavoured to stagger towards the wood, and ere they had taken a few steps, fell and wallowed on the bloody sand. My blood curdled within me as I witnessed this frightful and wanton slaughter; but I had little time to think, for the captain's deep voice came again over the water towards us: "Pull ashore, lads, and fill your water casks." The men obeyed in silence, and it seemed to me as if even their hard hearts were shocked by ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the liberal or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, etc. provided they are not accompanied with gross indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally treated with a good deal of indulgence, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... but two scriptures that I shall use more, and then I shall draw towards a conclusion. One is that in Proverbs, where Solomon is counselling of young men to beware of strange, that is, of wanton, light, and ensnaring women. Take heed of such, said he, lest 'thou mourn at the last,' that is, in hell, when thou art dead, 'when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, and say, How have I hated instruction, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... honorable hospitality. If Thou dost come as the great Lord of Life, The Lord of bear and wolf, and stag and fox, Leopard and ape, and rabbits of the rocks, We are thy children, as our brothers are,— The furry folk of forest fastnesses, The bright-winged birds that wanton with the breeze, The seal that sport amid the sapphire seas. We worship gods of lightning and of thunder, Of winds and hissing waves, the rainbow's wonder, The fruits and grains, borne by the kindly earth, And all the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America in the early periods of colonization to be doubly wronged by the white men. They have been dispossessed of their hereditary possessions by mercenary and frequently wanton warfare, and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and interested writers. The colonists often treated them like beasts of the forest, and the author has endeavored to justify him in his outrages. The former found it easier to exterminate ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... The speaker's former careless and boisterous manner instantly resumed possession. "You must permit me to speak of a wholly fictitious lady, a creature of my wanton fancy, sir, whom I call Carmen. It will enable me to relieve my burdened soul of some remarks I have long wished to ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... of fifty guns appeared in sight; and, after a desperate engagement with her, in which Walsingham was severely wounded, and every other officer on board killed or wounded, Walsingham saw that nothing was left but to make a wanton sacrifice of the remainder of his crew, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... girl he nudged he saw did not belong to the village—moreover, she was barefooted, mischievously drunk, and flushed with riding on the wooden horses. She was barely eighteen. She laughed outright as he gripped her strong arm, and opened her wanton mouth wide, showing her even, white teeth. In return for her welcome he slapped her strong ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... of countless varieties in kind and size, from the largest goose to the small marsh-bird, and of every conceivable variety of dismal note. Off they moved, in wild and alarmed rout, like a people going into exile; filling the air, far and wide, with their reproachful lament at the wanton cruelty which had driven ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... amiable of all characters, and is so sustained as to strike an audience very forcibly. In this, as in the former play, Mr. Rowe is guilty of a mis-nomer; for his Calista has not the least claim to be called the Fair Penitent, which would be better changed to the Fair Wanton; for she discovers not one pang of remorse till the last act, and that seems to arise more from the external distress to which she is then exposed, than to any compunctions of conscience. She still loves ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... injustice done them; and, if such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour of his or ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... (who was lying in wait for them,) and completely plucked of their feathers, an operation to which they very quietly submitted, and were then suffered to depart. Upon inquiring his motive for what appeared to me a wanton act of cruelty, he told me his intention was to stuff his bed with the feathers; 'or,' added he, 'if you vill, to feather my nest.' Being myself an admirer of a soft bed, I saw no reason why I should not employ myself in the same way; but owing, perhaps, to my being a novice ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... danger with which they were surrounded from false friends, originated that doubt which is now charged on the people of Ireland as a first proof of wanton discontent—I mean a doubt about the validity of the simple repeal of the 6th Geo. III. as an act of renunciation. Discontent on this subject arose and became general in Ireland almost immediately on the repeal of that obnoxious statute; and from the zeal and warmth with which it was attempted ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... to give a reason why he would not,) his majesty sent us an answer, that because we brought precedents of antiquity to strengthen those demands, he allowed not of any precedents drawn from the time of usurping or decaying princes, or people too bold and wanton; that he desired not to govern in that commonwealth where subjects should be assured of all things, and hope for nothing. It was one thing 'submittere principatum legibus,' and another thing 'submittere principatum subditis.' That he would not ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... blazing and starving cities, are almost beyond belief; unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their mothers; women and children were violated by thousands; and whole populations burned and hacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which cruelty, in its wanton ingenuity, could devise. Such was the administration, of which Vargas affirmed, at its close, that too much mercy, "nimia misericordia," had been ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Power in North America, Great Britain considers itself entitled to claim the use of the lakes as a military barrier."[394] The declaration of war by the United States was regarded by most Englishmen as a wanton endeavor to overthrow their immemorial right to the services of their seamen, wherever found; and consequently the invasion of Canada had been an iniquitous attempt to effect annexation under cover of an indefensible pretext. To guard against the renewal of such, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... pleasure in thwarting my wishes which made itself seen through the veil of assumed indifference. I felt myself brought up with a vengeance, and in a manner the most provoking that could be conceived. But opposition so childish, so utterly wanton, by exciting my indignation, had presently the effect of banishing the peculiar bashfulness I felt in her presence, and recalling me to ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... sought Honours, Princes thoughts observing, Many woo'd Fame, the child of paine and anguish, Others judg'd inward good a chiefe deserving, I in thy wanton Visions joy'd to languish. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... would by no means impeach the general rule of man's being a social animal; especially when it appears (as is sufficiently and admirably proved by my friend the author of An Enquiry into Happiness) that these men live in a constant opposition to their own nature, and are no less monsters than the most wanton abortions or extravagant births. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... ark cypresses, to the full height of Portofino Kulm, where the whole enchanted coast-line of the Riviera from Genoa to Sestri Levante lay spread out as a jewelled fringe of ocean. Elaine stood hatless while the wanton breeze caressed her glorious hair and caught at her ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... the altar tomb (6) which now contains the remains of Bishop Beauchamp, who died in 1481. When this was removed from the aisle at the north end of the great transept it was empty, and showed no trace of its original dedication. During the wanton demolition of the Beauchamp chantry, where, "in marble tumbes," with his father and mother on either hand, the remains of Bishop Beauchamp had been unmolested for over three hundred years, his own tomb was "mislaid" and never recovered. It is pleasant ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... death approacheth, speaks a different language —If it testifies to a departing soul—"You have neglected, the great salvation—lived in pleasure and been wanton, minding only earthly things," it fills the soul with anguish unutterable, causing it to ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... not a wanton. Natacha has no heart. She has only a brain. And it doesn't take long for a brain touched by Nihilism to get so it won't hesitate ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... two days of grace had passed for those doleful hostages in the Plymouth Adventure. They beheld the black flag hoisted to the rigging of the Revenge as a signal of tragic import, but the bandy-legged monster with the festooned whiskers was not to disport himself with this wanton butchery. The sky had closed darkly around the becalmed ships, in sodden clouds which were suddenly obscured by mist and rain while the wind sighed in fitful gusts. It steadied into the southward and swiftly increased in force until the sea was ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Saying, you are my servant and shall do My purposes, or utter bitterness Shall be your wage, and nothing come to you But stammering tongues that never can confess. Undaunted then in answer here I cry, 'You wanton, that control the hand of him Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky Where holy, holy, sing the cherubim, I will not pay one penny to your name Though all my ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... think he had no reason at all except wanton mischief. Perhaps he used the buttons for marbles; there cannot be any real reason for such a silly deed, though he may make one up. Well, why did you ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... lower classes, greedy for spoil, sacked and destroyed their houses, and pulled down and burned their towers and palaces with such outrageous fury, that the most cruel enemy of the Florentine name would have been ashamed of taking part in such wanton destruction. ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... to be required of him. He went mournfully and slowly up Grange Lane, steeling himself for the encounter, and trying to forgive aunt Dora in his heart. It was not very easy. Things might have turned out just the same without any interference—that was true; but to have it all brought on in this wanton manner by a kind foolish woman, who would wring her hands and gaze in your face, and want to know, Oh! did you think it was her fault? after she had precipitated the calamity, was very hard; and it was with a very gloomy countenance, accordingly, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... is blind, and a wanton; In the whole world, there is scant one ——Such another: No, not his mother. He hath pluck'd her doves and sparrows, To feather his sharp arrows, And alone prevaileth, While sick Venus waileth. But if Cypris once recover The wag; it shall behove ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... our strength when there is little strength left of any kind to feel? These things will hardly much disturb a man of ordinary good temper. But that he should have said this or that little unkind and wanton saying; that he should have gone away from this or that hotel and given a shilling too little to the waiter; that his clothes were shabby at such or such a garden- party—these things gall us as a corn will sometimes do, ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Sir James Stuart, David Stuart, Andrew Stuart, Joseph Signay, Robert Symes, Jean Thomas Taschereau, John Peyfinch Thirlwall, Henry Truder, Joseph Remi Valieres de St. Real, Geo. Vanfelson, Norman Fitzgerald Umacke, George Usborne, George A Wanton, Gustavus Wicksteed, Daniel Wilkie, George Willing, Thomas William Willan, George Wurtele and Jonathan Wurtele. After half a century the survivors are Gen. Baddely, Gustavus Wicksteed, Revd Edmund Sewell, John Fraser, Admiral Bayfield ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... She knew that, with the sacrifice of her chastity, she had surrendered everything a self-respecting woman holds dear, all for what—a few glittering trinkets! In what was she better than a common wanton? And what would her end be, but the end of all women of her kind? When her youth had passed and her beauty had faded, her admirers would grow cold and indifferent. Abandoned by all, friendless and homeless, she would go unwept to an ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... cried, "I will not let you go. For you are dear and pure and faithful, and all my evil dream, wherein you were a wanton and be-fooled me, was not true. Surely, mine was a dream that can never be true so long as there is any justice upon earth. Why, there is no imaginable God who would permit a boy to be robbed of that which in my evil dream was taken ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, rivers, cascades, intermingled with ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... unabashed freedom only by a long and faithful habitude of unselfish devotion, are here openly, deliberately, and carelessly assumed by people who have but a casual and partial society-acquaintance. This I reckon profanity. This is levity the most culpable. This is a guilty and wanton waste of delicacy. That it is practised by good girls and tolerated by good mothers does not prove that it is good. Custom blunts the edge of many perceptions. A good thing soiled may be redeemed by good people; but waltz as many as ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... that though they took the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown, or the rim of a crystal cup, in the heart of their picture, they would twist their capitals of columns and towers of churches about in the background in the most wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided only they left just perspective enough ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... Vernon savagely. He was violently excited. Perspiration was pouring off his face at the thought of the almost unparalleled act of wanton treachery that was about to be enacted. "If we could ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... was in a wanton mood to-night, and of late a voice had been desperately urging her to grasp at what she could, that she might, as long as possible, delay her ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by him, and he must go and throw ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her words before she foamed them from her, "if you weren't a daughter of mine, I'd—I'd say you were a wanton woman. You know in your heart, as your father always taught you—as you could read in the Bible now—if you ever do read your Bible—that the sins of the fathers, yes, and the mothers too, will fall ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... commentators have been puzzled by the multitude of these changes, and when, for a scene of a few moments, Shakespeare shows us a Roman army marching through Syria, they have been able to see in it nothing more than a wanton violation of the rule of the unity of place; they have not understood that it is precisely by such touches as these that Shakespeare has succeeded in bringing before our minds a sense of universal agitation and ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... "Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain" many instances are given of the wanton and wholesale destruction of church and churchyard memorials, even late in the eighteenth century. In some cases the church officers, as already stated, gave public notice prior to removal of gravestones, in order ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... And now he wants to educate you in the same school. Lucretia Kingsley is correct,—oil and water are more fit to be mated than you and Mr. Spence. You have broken her heart, too, by your wanton conduct, Virginia. Her sympathy for Mr. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modem history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... a tradition upon that farm for years afterwards that these two Mormons, after receiving charity, had made an open display of that wanton wickedness which ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... what Tongue can praise the mighty Worth, Who to Ridotto gave an English Birth; To him let every Templar bend the Knee, Receive a Ticket, and give up the Fee: Let Drury-Lane eternal Columns raise, And every wanton Wife resound his Praise; Let Courtiers with implicit Faith obey, And to their grand Procurer ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... And then how wanton and silly the whole management of the affair has been. Think of our Empire so gloriously won, so magnificently established. France, no doubt, brooded over the possibility of a revanche, but no other country envied us ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... Rhene, when winter's freezing cold Congeals the streams to thick and hardened glass, The beauties fair of shepherds' daughters bold With wanton windlays run, turn, play and pass; So on this river passed the wizard old, Although unfrozen soft and swift it was, And thither stalked where the warriors stayed, To whom, their greetings done, he spoke ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Icentum, in Warwickshire. In his youth, perceiving himself somewhat touched with wanton love on seeing a woman dance, he withdrew into a thicket hard by, and, lying prostrate, bewailed his fault before God, with very great contrition. And he was endowed from that time, by Almighty God, with the gift of such a constant watchfulness over his senses, as prevented ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... heard the cry of the wanton sea And the moan of the wailing wind; For love's sweet pain in his heart had he, But the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... usurping king, fled on the approach of King Tecla and Ras Michael with 20,000 men. On their entry into the city, those who had sympathised with the usurper were executed in hundreds with a wanton cruelty which shocked and disgusted me. The bodies of the victims were cut in pieces and scattered about the streets, and hundreds of hyenas came down from the neighbouring mountains to feed on the human carrion. I determined to do the best I could to escape from this bloody country, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... who settled Wheeling, [95] were also men of enterprise, tempered with prudence, and directed by sound judgment. Ready at all times, to resist and punish the aggression of the Indians, they were scrupulously careful not to provoke them by acts of wanton outrage, such as were then, too frequently committed along the frontier. Col. Ebenezer Zane had been among the first, to explore the country from the South Branch, through the Alleghany glades, and west ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... luxurious living, and indulged in excesses that it was not easy for the more frugal citizens to forgive. He sent seven chariots to the Olympic Games, from which he carried off the first, second, and fourth prizes. He gave splendid shows, distributed money freely, and in spite of his wanton follies retained numbers of friends ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... starvation in low life; foul floods of nastiness in Law Courts; muddy tricklings of misery in lawless alleys; crimes so terrible and revolting; pains so pitiless and cureless; follies so selfish and wanton, that he let the journal drop, and fell back in his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... of 1808 and of 1823 differed equally in object and in results: the first was a cunning and wanton attack, which threatened the existence of the Spanish nation, and was fatal to its author; the second, while combating dangerous principles, fostered the general interests of the country, and was the more readily brought to a ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... Bouvigny to the west of it—where I stood among Canadian batteries just six weeks before the battle of Arras in 1917. The lamentable ruin of once beautiful Arras, the desolation of Douai, and the villages between it and Valenciennes, the wanton destruction of what was once the heart of Cambrai, and that grim scene of the broken bridge on the Cambrai—Bapaume road, over the Canal du Nord, where we got out on a sombre afternoon, to look and look again ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and yet true to a spiritual goal, ultimately measures our health and natural normality and the value of our morality. Nature shapes her aims according to her means. Would that every man might realize this simple lesson and maxim—there would be less call for a rank and wanton hankering for relapses into archaic but evidently not wholly outgrown tendencies to the assumption of "omnipotence of thought," revived again from time to time as "New Thought." Psychiatry restores to science and to the practical mind the right to ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... humbly bows and meekly does obeisance. But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil,—before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... imagine the beauty of the great hall at Ferrara when hung with this brilliant series, which was completed in 1523 by the "Bacchus and Ariadne" of the National Gallery. The whole company of bacchanals is given up to wanton merrymaking. Above them broods the deep blue sky and great white clouds of a summer day. The deep greens of the foliage throw the creamy-white and burning colour of the draperies and the fair forms of the nymphs into glowing relief, while by a convention the satyrs ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... in all that time did I overcome the sense of unreality, and always I was obsessed by the injustice, the wanton waste and cost and injustice of it all. The baby at La Panne—why should it go through life on stumps instead of legs? The boyish officer—why should he have died? The little sixteen-year-old soldier who had been blinded and who sat all day by the phonograph, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... love with unconfined wings hovers within my gates; And my divine Althea brings to whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair and fetter'd to her eye; The gods that wanton in the air, know ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... excursions to the New River which Lamb recalls with so much relish, better, I think, than he can—for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not care much for such water-parties. How we would sally forth into the fields, and strip under the first warmth of the sun, and wanton like young dace in the streams, getting appetites for the noon; which those of us that were penniless (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying—while the cattle and the birds and the fishes were at feed about us, and we had ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... were postponed or evaded. The files and records of the Department of State contain conclusive proofs of numerous lawless acts perpetrated upon the property and persons of our citizens by Mexico, and of wanton insults to our national flag. The interposition of our Government to obtain redress was again and again invoked under circumstances which no nation ought to disregard. It was hoped that these outrages would cease and that Mexico ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... of lords shall be abhorr'd, For every man's a brother; No reason why in Church and State One man should rule another; But when the change of government Shall set our fingers free, We'll make these wanton sisters stoop, And hey, then, up ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... particularly shone in, were Sir Martin Marrall, Gomez in the Spanish Friar, Sir Nicolas Cully in Love in a Tub, Barnaby Brittle in the Wanton Wife, Sir Davy Dunce in the Soldier's Fortune, Sosia in Amphytrion, &c. &c. To tell you how he acted them, is beyond the reach of criticism: but to tell you what effect his action had upon the spectator, is not impossible: this then is all you will ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... secret mews The flowers the wanton Zephyrs choose; Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews Her head impearling; Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim, Yet hast not gone without thy fame; Thou art indeed by many a claim The ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... farther) as is necessary and expedient for the general advantage of the publick[c]. Hence we may collect that the law, which restrains a man from doing mischief to his fellow citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind: but every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject, whether practiced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly, is a degree of tyranny. Nay, that even laws themselves, whether made with or without ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... and loyal to their friends. But it shows us also how they spurned at restraint and fretted under it, how they would brook no wrong to themselves, and yet too often inflicted wrong on others; their feats of terrible prowess are interspersed with deeds of the foulest and most wanton aggression, the darkest treachery, the most revolting cruelty; and though we meet with plenty of the rough, strong, coarse virtues, we see but little of such qualities as mercy for the fallen, the weak, and the helpless, or pity for a ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... chance of his stepping upon it, as he turned on his heel to continue the momentarily interrupted conversation. It is hard to believe that so great a man as Grossmann could have been convulsed by a petty rage that found expression in some act of wanton destruction. ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... for October 29, 1768, regards the book in Bode's translation as an individual, unparalleled work of genius and discourses at length upon its beneficent medicinal effects upon those whose minds and hearts are perplexed and clouded. The wanton passages are acknowledged, but the reviewer asserts that the author must be pardoned them for the sake of his generous and kind-hearted thoughts. The Mittelstedt translation is also quoted and parallel passages are adduced to demonstrate ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... human breast; What wild desires like prisoned birds Impel the heart from east to west; What urgings baffling words Beat up from nature unexpressed Till soul distinct stands manifest, On guard for heaven, or, wanton, hurled Toward judgment through ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... and instantly killed while reading a newspaper. He was violating no rule whatever, and when shot was from eight to ten feet inside the window through which the bullet came. This was a wholly unprovoked and wanton murder; the cowardly miscreant had fired the shot while he was off duty, and from the north sidewalk of Carey street. The guards (home guards they were) used, in fact, to gun for prisoners' heads from their posts ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... down upon the unsheltered village. There was no shade anywhere—that is, outside the houses. For the place had grown up on the crests of the bald, green rollers of the Western plains as though its original seedling had been tossed there by the wanton summer breezes, and for no ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... free and careless life of former days. They had only changed their residence, not their character; their dreams were of future victories, of the many provinces they would take from the King of Prussia; and with this delightful prospect the old gay, luxurious, and wanton life was continued. What difference did it make to Count Bruhl that the army was only provided with commissary stores for fourteen days, and that this time was almost past, and no way had been found to furnish them with additional supplies. The King of Prussia had garrisoned ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... author, gives us the vision of the ideal, this Power which sets the mark of its approval upon our surrender to its behests, this Power which manifests its character in doing justice upon individuals and nations alike, weeding out the selfish, the wanton, the luxurious, and preserving the pure and upright; may we not ask what reason there is for withholding from that Power the one adequate ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... only the critic who destroys books, for neglect may approach dangerously near to wanton destruction. At the least, he who regards not the welfare of his books is an accessory before the fact of their destruction. 'Books,' says that veteran bibliophile M. Octave Uzanne, 'are so many faithful and serviceable friends, ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... The atrocities of the Harriet episode did some good, however, for along with other circumstances they stirred up the English Government to make some inquiries into the manner in which Englishmen treated the natives of uncivilised countries. These inquiries showed much injustice and sometimes wanton cruelty, and when a petition came from the respectable people of Kororarika, asking that some check should be put upon the licence of the low white men who frequented that port, the English Government resolved to annex ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... moderate minister who would rashly decide in favor of prerogative in a question where the rights of Parliament are involved, nor a prudent minister who, even in a doubtful case, commits the prerogative, by a wanton experiment, to what degree the people will bear the extent of it. The opposite course was that by which a minister would consult the best interests of the crown, as well as of the people. The safety of the crown, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... now the wild flowers round them only breathe: Yet ruined splendour still is lingering there. And yonder towers the prince's palace fair: There thou, too, Vathek! England's wealthiest son, Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... time above as much as the two who were last before the court. Here is a rogue quite as worthless as that one at Shrewsbury the other day, when the Interlude of Doctor Faustus was being played, amidst all manner of most wanton and lascivious revelries, and where many things were going on conducive to the welfare of your realm; when they were busiest, the devil himself appeared to play his part, and so drove all away from pleasure ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... were such (that if we aught believe Of elder days), women examples were Of rare virtues: Lucrece disdain'd to live Longer than chaste; and boldly without fear Took sharp revenge on her enforced heart With her own hands: for that it not withstood The wanton will, but yielded to the force Of proud Tarquin, who bought her fame ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... bustlingly officious and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar—but on his companion ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... Solitary Lute, Melting Airs, soft Joys inspire, Airs for drooping Hope to hear. And again, Now, let the sprightly Violin A louder Strain begin: And now, Let the deep mouth'd Organ blow, Swell it high and Sink it low. Hark! how the Treble and the Base In wanton Fuges each other chase, And swift Divisions run their Airy Race. Thro' all the travers'd Scale they fly, In winding Labyrinths of Harmony, By turns They rise and fall, by Turns we ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... is expected to-day. I have spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, rivers, cascades, intermingled ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... He had seen the young idlers—who, but a moment ago, were fawning round Dea Flavia's litter—turning eagerly back towards the rostrum, where Hun Rhavas' cries and moans had suggested the likelihood of one of those spectacles of wanton and purposeless cruelty in which their perverted ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... instruments, and catching them again on the points of their fingers. "She has enchanted him with her glamour. Foul is fair! Foul fair thee, young springal, if thou go to the nets. Shadow and goblin to goblin and shadow! Flesh and blood to blood and flesh!"—and dancing round him, with wanton looks and bare arms, and gossamer robes that brushed him as they ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mittens), "it is my opinion that the flood will recede more rapidly than you think, and that the majority of these people will survive. But I quite agree with your merciful view of the matter. We must be guilty of no wanton destruction. Probably more than nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Mars have perished in the deluge. Even if all the others survived ages would elapse before they could regain the power to ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... hateful mother, and over the craven Aegisthus. And on the selfsame day there came to him Menelaus of the loud war-cry, bringing much treasure, even all the freight of his ships. So thou, my friend, wander not long far away from home, leaving thy substance behind thee and men in thy house so wanton, lest they divide and utterly devour all thy wealth, and thou shalt have gone on a vain journey. Rather I bid and command thee to go to Menelaus, for he hath lately come from a strange country, from the ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... feeling of compassion for the future fate of the miserable children. Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and devotees of all the countries which it governed—"the dark-skinned daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of the Persian Mithras, imported by the Pompeians from Cilicia; emasculated Asiatics, priests of Berecynthian Cybele, with their wild dances and discordant cries; worshipers of the great goddess Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians, Jews, Chaldean ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... Taimur. Now, Maitland was a born pantomimist, continually inventing practical jokes; and perhaps to startle me with a false alarm in the very skin of the old Bruin which had so nearly done for him, he had thrown it round him on finishing its cleaning, and so, in mere wanton fun, had crept on deck at the hour of his watch. The head of the bear-skin, and the fog, must have prevented him from seeing ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... beyond each anxious watcher's sight, Baring her bosom to the wanton sea, The lordly ship sweeps onward in ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Maria. A wanton imp, And full of freaks. I marvel much thereat, Since I have named him from a holy saint, Who bode among us many years, and gave His dying blessing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... Through the wanton breath of the depths that assail me I see, far below, the seashore dawning. The ghostly strand that I glimpse while I cling to my own body is bare, endless, rain-drowned, and supernaturally mournful. Through the long, heavy and concentric mists ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... this wanton act of cruelty, and of the numbers he slew at the battle of Wakefield with his own hand, that he was thenceforth called "the butcher," a terrible distinction, which will cling to his ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... to us, brought up in the dainty laws of chivalry, Walter de Montreal is the famous Knight of Provence, to the Tribune of Rome, whose grave mission we now fulfil, he is but the mercenary captain of a Free Company. Grievously in his eyes should we sully our dignity by so wanton and irrelevant a holiday conflict with a declared ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the stories of wanton destruction that reached us. I would rather not believe that the Federal Government could be so disgraced by its own soldiers. Dr. Day says they left nothing at all in his house, and carried everything off from Dr. Enders's. He does not believe we have a single article left in ours. I ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... extravagant. Forests, mines and soil fertility are wasted with wanton prodigality. We speak of our coal deposits and oil and gas wells as inexhaustible. We simply mean that it will be impossible for this and probably for the next generation to exhaust them. But coal mines are not inexhaustible. Oil and gas wells are problematical as to the length of time they will ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... which threaten it with death by thirst. How long intelligence has existed upon Mars, if intelligence there be, no one can say; nor yet what its future will be. It would seem probable that our own fate must be similar, but it is far removed. And though the Whole may seem wanton, purposeless, stupid, we are very little folk; we see very dimly; we see only what we have the capacity to see; and there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the wisest of us. So also there are many events ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... inheritance before he has had the chance to touch it? Will you let him come, taking your place, gaining through your experiences, hallowed through your joys, building on them his own, or will you fling his hope away, decreeing, wanton-like, that the man you might have ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... shapes Of little frisking elves and apes, To earth do make their wanton 'scapes As hope ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... far, on my voyage. Let me cast my eyes back on the vast sea that I have traversed; there is a mist settled over it, almost as impenetrable as that which glooms before me. Let me pause. Methinks that I see it gradually break, and partial sunbeams struggle through it. Now the distant waves rise, and wanton and play, pure and lucid. 'Tis the day-spring of innocency. How near to the sanctified heavens do those remote waves appear! They meet, and are as one with the far horizon. Those sparkling waves were the hours of my childhood—the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... writers of the Augustan era, it would seem that this custom was not confined to people of distinction, but was familiar to a class of travellers so low in rank as to be capable of abusing their opportunities of concealment for the infliction of wanton injury upon the woods and fences which bounded the margin, of the high-road. Under the cloud of night and solitude, the mischief-loving traveller was often in the habit of applying his torch to the ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... in angry perplexity. Could she ever be serious? Was all the tenderness of the past only heedless coquetry? Had she danced with him, drove with him, sailed with him, walked in the moonlight and made much of him in mere wanton mischief? What right had she to be so pretty and so—without heart or sensibility? A Southern girl with the word love on a young man's lips would have become a Circe of seductive wooing until the tale were told, even though she could not give her ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... battery shattered three of the boats with heavy loss of life. Somewhat ruffled, Admiral Warren decided to go elsewhere and made a foray upon the defenseless village of Hampton during which he permitted his men to indulge in wanton pillage and destruction. Part of his fleet then sailed up to the Potomac and created a most distressing hysteria in Washington. The movement was a feint, however, and after frightening Baltimore ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... your hellish 'ifs,'" cried the girl in sudden fury. "If John were to—to look at that Scottish mongrel as I looked at Leicester, I would—I would kill the royal wanton. I would kill her if it cost my life. Now, for God's sake, leave me. You see the state into which you have wrought me." I left Madge with Dorothy and walked out upon Bowling Green to ponder on the events that were passing ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... were, For all the fortunes of my life hereafter, Yon little tree, yon blooming Apricocke; How I would spread and fling my wanton armes In at her window! I would bring her fruit Fit for the gods ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... way could any trace of that misfortune, or any suggestive hint of something resembling it, exist in the archives of the "Annual Register" or in the pages of Voltaire? The bare idea of such a thing seemed absurd The mere attempt to make a serious examination in this direction was surely a wanton waste of time. ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... Brandes in his low, deliberate voice. His heavy, round face was deeply flushed; Fortune, the noisy wanton, had flung both arms around his neck. But his slow eyes were continually turned on the slim young girl whom he was teaching to walk beside ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... it! White-kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed till the tears came, and clapped their hands in very ecstacy when that unhappy old woman would come meekly out for the sixth time, with uncomplaining patience, to meet a storm of hisses! It was the cruelest exhibition—the most wanton, the most unfeeling. The singer would have conquered an audience of American rowdies by her brave, unflinching tranquillity (for she answered encore after encore, and smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the best she possibly could, and went bowing ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... settled that my health would never survive such a wanton infringement of all sanitary laws, Irene again sank on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Now was my time. I crept noiselessly back up the corridor until my hand was actually on the baize door. Then excitement got the better of prudence; ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... unexpected, the veiled and somewhat more hypocritical atmosphere, and in the fogs of London, he had said, were more romantic mysteries than in any other city. Still, she had feared. And besides she longed to see him. So she had unbent and thought herself soon after somewhat reckless; it was a little wanton and unfair to bring him back. But she was not a saint; she was a woman; and ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... you and your father out of this town and this state," he exclaimed. "They shall know here in San Mateo, and wherever you go if it's in my power to reach there, what sort of a pretending, double-faced, disreputable wanton——" ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... there was one who looked with disapproving eyes upon so much wanton cruelty, as he marched along silently with his brows knit in disgust. At length, seeing that the guard, not satisfied with the branch, was kicking the prisoners that fell, he could no longer restrain himself but cried out impatiently, "Here, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... ferreted out a trembling wretch in the rear and drove him to the front with taunts; or, if he were too panic-stricken to get up, she had no compunction in thrashing him with a stick until he did so. The little savage was beside herself as she danced and sang like a wanton child in the rain—a rain of Martini and Lee-Remington balls stinging the air all ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... small tissue paper parcel. This she opened carefully, and disclosed a tiny shoe, homely but neat, a little child's chemise, and an old, faded, pink print sun-bonnet, minus a string. In the upper leather of the shoe were several cuts, the work of some wanton hand. Sitting back upon her heels, she let the open parcel fall ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... for a better place to talk than this, Rose thought. Why didn't he begin? Probably he'd got started thinking about something else. A motor coming along near the curb emitted a particularly wanton bellow, and she saw him jump like a nervous woman, then stand still and glare after the offender. He must be feeling specially irritable to-night, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... it were woven, here and there, The golden threads of a maiden's hair, As the wanton wind with tosses and twirls Blew in and out of her floating curls, While her busy fingers swiftly drew The ivory needle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... and I bar any more fishing. The law has reached its limit. No wanton waste of the good things of ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... B.C. 666 Asshur-bani-pal made, in person, a second expedition into Egypt, defeated Rut-Ammon upon the frontier, recovered Memphis, marched upon Thebes, Rut-Ammon retiring as he advanced, stormed and sacked the great city, inflicted wanton injury on its temples, carried off its treasures, and enslaved its population. The triumph of the Assyrian arms was complete. Very shortly all resistance ceased. The subject princes were replaced in their ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... to attract the eye; no gorgeous colour-patterns or pleasing irregularities of form; the frosted beauty of the scene appeals rather to the intelligence. Contrasted with the wanton blaze of green, the contorted trunks and labyrinthine shadow-meanderings of our woodlands, these palm groves, despite their frenzied exuberance, figure forth the idea of reserve and chastity; an impression which is heightened by the ethereal striving of those ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... let me charge you to guard it with exceeding care. It should be treated with reverence because it symbolizes our common country. Whoever regards it with indifference has no patriotic blood in his veins. Whoever lays wanton hands on it is a traitor to it. And whoever insults or defames it in any way, deserves, and will receive, the open scorn and lasting contempt of all his countrymen. Ladies and gentlemen, ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... His father knew he hated to drive the mules to town, and knew how he hated to go anywhere with Dan and Jerry. As for the hides, they were the skins of four steers that had perished in the blizzard last winter through the wanton carelessness of these same hired men, and the price they would bring would not half pay for the time his father had spent in stripping and curing them. They had lain in a shed loft all summer, and the wagon had been to town a dozen times. But today, when he wanted to go to Frankfort clean ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... and look'd as keenly at her As careful robins eye the delver's toil; And that within her, which a wanton fool, Or hasty judger would have call'd her guilt, Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall. And Geraint look'd and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... struggling clouds repel the rising ray. Yet nought disturb'd my unprophetic soul; Resign'd to joy, impatient of control, I seem'd new-born: Creative Hope again Restored the sense of pleasure, and of pain; Tumultuous transport, now no more suppressed, Shone from my eyes, and wanton'd in my breast. ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... afternoon. It began to nettle him that his grief should be for her merely an amusement. Never having seen the Gothic maiden, whose beauty outshone hers as sunrise outdoes the lighting of a candle, this wanton Greek was capable of despising him in good earnest, and Basil had never been of those who sit easy under scorn. He felt something chafe and grow hot within him, and recalled the days when he, and not Heliodora, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the Eldest Sister of all other Countries; carrying away from them all the greatest blessings and favours, and receiving such gracious looks from the Sun and Heaven, that, if there be any fault in Italy, it is, that her Mother Nature hath cockered her too much, even to make her become Wanton." Plainly, our Tannhaeuser is but too ready to go back to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... the merchant brought back this reply, "to- morrow I will cause all the male inhabitants of this city to pass before your house, and your wife will stand at the window and watch for the man who did this wanton deed." ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... his feet] Murderess! Monster! She-devil! Unnatural, inhuman wretch! You deserve to be hanged, guillotined, broken on the wheel, burnt alive. No sense of the sacredness of human life! No thought for my wife and children! Bitch! Sow! Wanton! [He picks up the pistol]. And missed me at five yards! Thats a woman ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... agein? How many yeares doeth loue, anger, spite, sensualitie, excesse, and ambition, trouble and prouoke the mynde? How many doo wee see, whiche euen from their youth, too their latter dais neuer awake nor repet them of the drunkennes, of ambitio, nigardnes, wanton lust, & riatte? Spu. I haue knowen ouermany of that sorte. Hedo. You haue grauted that false and fayned good || thinges, are not too bee estemed for the pure and godly. Sp. And I affirme that still. Hedo. Nor that there is no true and perfect pleasure, except it bee taken of honest and ...
— A Very Pleasaunt & Fruitful Diologe Called the Epicure • Desiderius Erasmus
... held out as long as he could and then retreated to the main body, after killing three- thousand of the enemy, just double the number of his original command. On his retreat, the Chileans swarmed into Chorrillos, more intent on plunder and wanton murder than honorable warfare, while the Chilean fleet continued to pour a storm of shot and shell after the retreating fragments of the little command. That night the Chileans broke into the liquor store-houses and soon drunkenness increased their natural blood thirstiness. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... from Mr. Wanton directs us to the issue of The Illustrated London News for 8th December 1855, where we find the following note on the Isle of Man, obviously contributed to that journal by Borrow, together with an illustration of the Runic Stone, which ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... conduct would have met with universal approbation. Instead of this they again set to work pulling down roods, smashing up ancient tombs and committing to the flames vestments and service books—the work of years of artistic labour(1488)—until the wanton destruction was restricted, if not altogether stopped, by the ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... at this wanton exhibition of cruelty, and offered him a paper of candy if he would liberate his prisoners, which he did rather reluctantly, but promising himself to replenish the ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... zealous and long continued—that she might dispose by will; and it was but a troubled comfort that, should he be living at the time of her death, the susceptible Henry would profit no less than the wanton Albert. Henry was at any cost to be kept in life that he might profit; the woeful question, the question of delicacy, for a woman devoutly conscientious, was how could anyone else, how, above all, could fifteen ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... common people. "The end of this play," says the author in his preface, "is chiefly to expose the perfidious base, cowardly, and bloody nature of the Irish." The account which the fugitive Protestants give of the wanton destruction of cattle is confirmed by Avaux in a letter to Lewis, dated April 13/23 1689, and by Desgrigny in a letter to Louvois, dated May 17/27. 1690. Most of the despatches written by Avaux during his mission to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the top. Through the interstices of these poles, Standish and his men saw the glittering eyes of the savages watching their approach; and before they could decide whether to advance or retreat, a shower of arrows was discharged, several of which took effect, though not mortally. This wanton aggression roused the spirit of the sturdy Englishmen, and regardless of the efforts which Captain Standish made to restrain them, a volley of musket balls instantly replied to the challenge of the red men; and the wild cries that arose from the cemetery plainly told that they had ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... waltz than usual, and Ida and Sibley were whirling through the wide apartment as if treading on air; but when, a few moments later, they circled near where he stood, he saw upon the young man's face an expression of earthiness and grossness that was anything but ethereal. Indeed so unmistakably wanton was the look which Sibley bent upon his companion, whose heaving bosom he clasped against his won, that the artist frowned darkly at him, and felt his hand tingling to strike the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... of smoke— And then a dull strange throb, a whistling hiss, And scarce a score of yards away a shot Ploughed up the turf. None knew, none ever knew From whence it came, whether a perilous jest Of English seamen, or a wanton deed Of Spaniards, or mere accident; but all Her maids in flight were scattered. Bess awoke As from a dream, crying aloud—"'Tis he, 'Tis he that sends this message. He is not dead. I will not pass the porch. Come home with me. 'Twas he that sent that message." Nought availed, Her ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... depend, in the case of women capable of deep love—on the men whether the relation into which marriage betrays them be decent or indecent. What I should like to be able to discover is—what provision does either man or civilization propose to make for the woman whom Fate, in wanton irony, reduces, even in marriage, to the self-considered level of ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... back, bringing her mistress with her. Ts'ui, this time, was languid and flushed, yielding and wanton in her air, as though her strength could scarcely support her limbs. Her former ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... of God, that his mercy towards repentant women who washed his feet with their tears might not be taken as softness towards sin, came back from heaven to say in the Book of Revelation, that he will "cast into great tribulation" and "kill with death" wanton women and the men who visit them. Of these iniquities the compassionate Redeemer says, "Which things I also hate." Rulers cannot claim any consent or condonement of their regulation of vice from the Head of all human government, the King of kings, to whom they must answer for their ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... are out of your mind," said the count, with imperturbable equanimity. "You grant that I may propose a suitor to you, and you call it a wanton insult when that suitor respectfully asks the honour of your hand, merely because he is not young enough to suit your romantic tastes, which have been fostered by this wretched southern air. It is unfortunate that my health requires me to reside in ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... the first, and hence had his nickname of Batalus, given him, it is said, by the boys, in derision of his appearance; Batalus being, as some tell us, a certain enervated flute-player, in ridicule of whom Antiphanes wrote a play. Others speak of Batalus as a writer of wanton verses and drinking songs. And it would seem that some part of the body, not decent to be named, was at that time called batalus by the Athenians. But the name of Argas, which also they say was a nickname of Demosthenes, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... this matter of chastity!" wrote James Hinton forty years ago. "Think of that line: 'A woman who deliberates is lost.' We make danger, making all womanhood hang upon a point like this, and surrounding it with unnatural and preternatural dangers. There is a wanton unreason embodied in the life of woman now; the present 'virtue' is a morbid unhealthy plant. Nature and God never poised the life of a woman upon such a needle's point. The whole modern idea of chastity has in it sensual exaggeration, surely, in part, remaining to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... "Shoot, wanton!" said I. "Shoot, lest I beat you again for the vile, shameless thing you are." At this she flinched and her fierce eyes wavered; then she ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... I hide in the Shalimar With a wanton princess slender and proud, And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seem Two streaming peacocks gone in a cloud Of golden dust, with star after star On ...
— New Poems • D. H. Lawrence
... stoutly, according to the stranger the respect he seemed to command. "A wanton insult to this lady whom I met unprotected in the streets, and saw her safely to her gate. Who she is, or what, I ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... which indeed seemed to them quite wanton, Lord and Lady Valleys turned on their son, and the three stood staring, perfectly silent. A little noise ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... wave Have made—and like a living grave Below the surface of the lake The dark vault lies wherein we lay; We heard it ripple night and day; Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; And I have felt the winter's spray Wash through the bars when winds were high And wanton in the happy sky; And then the very rock hath rocked, And I have felt it shake unshocked, Because I could have smiled to see The death that ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars, and winking, from their shelves, in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustering high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shop-keeper's benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks, ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... with which the two of England and Russia, who had already borne it, had clouded its immortality. She had never, in any way, interfered in political events. Malice itself had never whispered a circumstance to her dispraise. After this wanton assassination, it is scarcely to be expected that the innocent and candid looks and streaming azure eyes of that angelic infant, the Dauphin, though raised in humble supplication to his brutal assassins, with an eloquence which would have disarmed the savage tiger, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... has chipped the urn," he continued, feeling exceedingly vexed, as a Vicar always does when he finds any wanton defacement of the building and ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... from the infant, she bestowed with the utmost profuseness on the poor unknown mother, whom she called an impudent slut, a wanton hussy, an audacious harlot, a wicked jade, a vile strumpet, with every other appellation with which the tongue of virtue never fails to lash those who bring a disgrace ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Temple on Childermas Day, where he had his officers, a marshal, constable, butler, &c. See DUGDALE'S ORIGINES JURIDICIALES, p. 247.—Ray says, the interpretation of the word Cockney, is, a young person coaxed or conquered, made wanton; or a nestle cock, delicately bred and brought up, so as, when arrived a man's estate, to be unable to bear the least hardship. Whatever may be the origin of this appellation, we learn from the following verses, attributed to Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, that ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... I have been wanton to-night. I confess it. I am proud of it. But it was not—professional. It was the first time in my life. Almost do I regret—almost do I regret that I did not do it sooner—it has been crowned with such success. You have held ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... of old to my father and me, and it seemed to me as though there were a spring of water there, though the water was very near dried up. But looking closer, I saw that it was quite full; so I bethought me that I would drink thereof, and I leaned over, when lo! that Evil-wanton (I mean the Devil) caught me by the beard and would not let me go. I begged and prayed, but still he held me tight. 'Give me,' said he, 'what thou hast at home, or I'll never let thee go!'—And I said to him, 'Lo! now, I have horses.'—'I ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... a wall around these fine ruins for their protection from wanton destruction. It takes proof of the kind afforded by these ruins to convince this unbelieving generation that the ancient Irish were skilled carvers on stone, and architects of no mean order. I have looked into some ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... up and go out of the room; his steps sounded going upstairs, in the direction of his study. She went and drew the chair up to the hearthrug, and sat down, resting her elbows on the arms and holding her head between her hands. It was very wanton that a chance allusion of his should have brought about this scene between them. Perhaps she could have put him off with excuses, but that had not occurred to her. The scene had told her nothing new, but it had torn ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... indians. They were expecting us, and seemed disappointed at our refusal to stop. The shell of the old church, almost ready to fall, suggested past magnificence. The little modern structure, at its side, is suited to the present needs. We were vexed at the wanton sacrifice of a great tree, which had stood near the town-house, but whose giant trunk was prostrate, and stripped of its branches. A man on foot showed us the road beyond the town, and it was moonlight before we reached Citala, where we ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... in all its phases is interesting. The account of a fire or of a railroad accident takes on a new interest when, in addition to the loss of property, there has been a loss of life. War is horribly fascinating, not so much because there is a wanton destruction of property, as because it involves the slaughter of men. Stories about trees and animals are usually failures, unless handled by artists who breathe into them the life of man. Andersen's ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... man in a decided tone. He was growing impatient at what he thought to be a wanton check of ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... melancholy or hypochondriacal. If he were elated and restless, ready for all sorts of undertakings and projects, his condition was attributed to a great flow of spirits. If, while talking very sensibly on many subjects and doing many proper things, he manifested a propensity to wanton mischief, why, then he was possessed with a devil and consigned to chains and straw,—unless he had committed some senseless act of crime, in which case he received from the law the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... /I here discard my sickness./ Ligarius here pulls off the kerchief. Cf. Northumberland's speech, 2 Henry IV, I, i, 147, "hence, thou sickly quoif! Thou art a guard too wanton ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... slunk away, and not until the sound of the closing door gave warning of his departure did the count turn around. His gaze was fixed upon the Venus, who in her wanton beauty met his ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... to use the power which his love has placed in your hand. Your position of vantage may be read in a gesture, a look, a tone. Oh! darling, how truly are you the mad wanton your mother called you! You do not question, I fancy, that I am greatly Louis' superior. Well, I would ask you, have you ever heard me contradict him? Am I not always, in the presence of others, the wife who respects in him ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... piece of wanton cruelty, Mr Capstick," exclaimed the captain. "I must prohibit the ship's muskets being made use of for such a purpose; they are intended to be used against our enemies, not employed ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... how, say, varlet! I say let him not come near my doors. I say, he is a wanton young Levite, and pampereth himself up with dainties, that he may look lovely in the eyes of women. Sincerely, I am afraid he hath already defiled the tabernacle of our sister Comfort; while her good husband is deluded by his godly appearance. I say that even ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... SOL. Alas! what word? What have I said? what done? that thou should'st deem I could do this, this, this, that is so foul, My baffled tongue deserts me. Thou should'st know me, Thou hast set spies on me. What! have they told thee I am a wanton? I do love this man As fits a virgin's heart. Heaven sent such thoughts To be our solace. But to act a toy For his loose hours, or worse, to find him one Procured for mine, grateful for opportunities Contrived with decency, spared ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... pseudo-amatory odes, to Morfydd, or this or that other lady, fair or ugly; little didst thou care for any of them, Dame Nature was thy love, however thou mayest seek to disguise the truth. Yes, yes, send thy love- message to Morfydd, the fair wanton. By whom dost thou send it, I would know? by the salmon forsooth, which haunts the rushing stream! the glorious salmon which bounds and gambols in the flashing water, and whose ways and circumstances thou so well describest—see, there he hurries ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... whisky in return for every valuable thing the Indians had to trade. And when the Indian Camp was ablaze with the light of campfires and was a mad whirl of dancing drunkenness the miscreant traders from the South, in a spirit of utter wanton devilry, got under cover of a cut bank by the creek where the camp was, and proceeded to shoot the Indians who were defenceless in their orgy. A volley or two accounted for two score killed and many wounded, only a few escaping to the hills. And this carnival of bloodshed was witnessed by an American ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... Carl Michael Bellman, the Swedish Beranger (1740-1795), whose wanton music resounded through the latter half of the eighteenth century, would, no doubt, by many be called a great poet. But his Bacchanalian strain, though at times exquisite and captivating, lacks the universality of sentiment and that depth of resonance of which greatness can alone be ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... as to create a manner peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently sways herself to and fro; the ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... some people of fashion, against the French nation is illiberal, in the highest degree; nay, it is more, it is a national disgrace.—When I recollect with what ease and uninterruption I have passed through so many great and little towns, and extensive provinces, without a symptom of wanton rudeness being offered me, I blush to think how a Frenchman, if he made no better figure than I did, would have been treated in a tour through Britain.—My Monkey, with a pair of French jack boots, and his hair en queue, rode postillion upon my sturdy horse some hours every day; such ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... remember still thy end, Let not thy winding-sheete be staind with guilt; Trust not a fained reconciled frend, More than an open foe (that blood hath spilt): (Who tutcheth pitch, with pitch shalbe defiled), Be not with wanton companie beguiled. ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... as a ghost just because I broke those wretched eggs! Look at that furious little bird! I declare it is ready to peck my eyes out! There, madam! now you may go to work and lay some more eggs;" and she took the sole remaining egg from the nest and flung it with wanton ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... deep and strong, Incomparably nerved and cheered, The enormous heart of London joys to beat To the measures of his rough, majestic song: The lewd, perennial, overmastering spell That keeps the rolling universe ensphered And life and all for which life lives to long Wanton and ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... my passionate, deathless soul, Was less than his finger-tips; He turned away fro the gold of my love For the dross on a wanton's lips. My faith in his truth is broken— Even truth itself is a lie. I have cursed him!—but I love him, And I'll love him till ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... a long room, the only man at a table with seven women ranging in years from four to forty-four. The accumulation of girls in his family was so wanton an outrage upon his desires that he rather rejoiced in the completeness of the infliction as ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... great-grandmother-in-law, and her great-grandfather accordingly, Mrs. Mehitable and Parson Job Hyde, peering out, one from a bushy ornament of pink laurel-blossoms, and the other from an airy and delicate garland of the wanton sweet-pea, each stony pair of eyes seeming to glare with Medusan intent at this profaning of their state and dignity. "Isn't it charming, dear?" said the innocent little beauty, with a satisfaction half doubtful, as her husband's laugh ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... deepened. Fate had played me a wanton trick. Cynthia trusted me. If I were weak, I should not be the only one to suffer. And something told me that I should be weak. How could I hope to be strong, tortured by the thousand memories which the sight of her would bring ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... the end draws nigh, and by God's will Old age's bound is reached: how have I spent And with what fruit so wide a tract of days? I wept in boyhood 'neath the sounding rod: Youth's toga donned, the rhetorician's arts I plied and with deceitful pleadings sinned: Anon a wanton life and dalliance gross (Alas! the recollection stings to shame!) Fouled and polluted manhood's opening bloom: And then the forum's strife my restless wits Enthralled, and the keen lust of victory Drove me to many a bitterness and ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... long been recognized as the chief pathological condition in hysteria, and especially in that peculiar form of disease known as nymphomania, under the excitement of which a young woman, naturally chaste and modest, may be impelled to the commission of the most wanton acts. The pernicious influence of fashionable dress in occasioning this disorder cannot ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... Lyre, the Heart—my Muse, the simple Truth. Far be't from me the "virgin's mind" to "taint:" Seduction's dread is here no slight restraint: The maid whose virgin breast is void of guile, Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile, Whose downcast eye disdains the wanton leer, Firm in her virtue's strength, yet not severe; She, whom a conscious grace shall thus refine, Will ne'er be "tainted" by a strain of mine. But, for the nymph whose premature desires Torment ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... and abstaining from it, he was free to select a third course and to accomplish it in such a way that the result would not be evil, but unmixed good. In this case it would hardly seem possible to exonerate the doer from a charge of wanton malice, diabolic in degree. And such is the position in which many theologians seem—to those who view things in the light of reason—to have placed God Himself. It was open to Him, they maintain, to create or ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... rallied a little," he said, after expressing sympathy and concern for the plight of both officers. "And he agrees with me that it is wanton sacrifice of men to hold out any longer. Only Courtenay and Martin untouched out of the seven of you; for Desmond's just had his wrist smashed, poor fellow. We must get back, as best we can, by the lane and over the kotal. Desmond has ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... snatched out his sword and thrust it through the unfortunate lord. The barbarism of the times is most shockingly displayed in the brutal manner in which he treats the dead body; but for the honour of the Danish prince, we must suppose that it was not merely a wanton act, but done the more decidedly to convince the king, when the strange situation of the corpse was seen, how absolutely he must be divested of reason. Being assured he was now alone with his mother, in a most awful manner he turns upon her, and avows his madness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... cloudless evening. They sauntered past the picture gallery, and the fact that she was walking with this strange and somewhat ambiguous young man provoked her to think of herself and him as a couple from that politely wanton assembly which had collected at eventide to watch a pavane danced beneath the beauty of a Renaissance colonnade, and to accentuate the resemblance Evelyn fluttered her parasol and said, pointing across ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... the licence of a highwayman; his pride in the opportunity for helpfulness grew to be the braggadocio of a bully; his freedom of personal choice became the insolence of lawlessness; his pretended purity and justice proved wanton selfishness. ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... screamed. 'Passive, relentless, and deadly, they follow in your wake and will not be denied. The strong, the helpless, the coarse and the beautiful—all you have killed and mutilated in your wanton devilry—they are on your heels like a pack of spectre-hounds, and sooner or later they will have you in their cold arms and hale you down to the secret places of terror. Look at Beston, who leads, with a fearful smile on his mouth! Look at that pale ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... midst of this wanton court that the yellow-haired Lucrezia Borgia grew up to womanhood, subject to all the baleful influences which were in such profusion about her. Associating, perforce, with the dissolute women of her ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... gie a proper sorting to yon twa silly jauds that gard me mak a bogle of you, and a fule of mysell—Ghaists! my certie, I sall ghaist them—If they had their heads as muckle on their wark as on their daffing, they wad play nae sic pliskies—it's the wanton steed that scaurs at the windle-strae—Ghaists! wha e'er heard of ghaists in an honest house? Naebody need fear bogles that has a conscience void of offence.—But I am blithe that MacTurk hasna murdered ye when a' is ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... call for victuals between meals, use him to nothing but dry bread. If he be hungry more than wanton, bread will go down; and if he be not hungry, it is not fit that he should eat. By this you will obtain two good effects. First, that by custom he will come to be in love with bread; for, as I said, our ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... overwhelm them. They fought as savage nature will fight, with unflinching courage and unrelenting cruelty. But it was not alone this encroachment upon their lands, which roused their savage passions. The wanton aggressions of the whites oftentimes provoked the fearful retaliation of the red-man. The policy of the United States towards the Indians has generally been of a pacific and benevolent character; but, in carrying out that policy, there have been many signal and inexcusable failures. ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... their treacherous plan, burst into Upper Austria, where the emperor had provided that there should be no force to oppose them. They spread themselves over the country, robbing the Protestants and destroying their property with the most wanton cruelty. Crossing the Danube they continued their march and entered Bohemia. Still Rhodolph kept quiet in his palace, sending no force to oppose, but on the contrary contriving that towns and fortresses, left ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... hear the music float Along the gloaming lea; 'Tis sweet to hear the blackbird's note Come pealing frae the tree; To see the lambkins lightsome race— The speckled kid in wanton chase— The young deer cower in lonely place, Deep in her flowing den; But sweeter far the bonny face That smiles in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... group of superstitions? And since mythology has been shown to be the result of primeval attempts to explain the phenomena of nature, what natural phenomenon could ever have given rise to so many seemingly wanton conceptions? Hopeless as the problem may at first sight seem, it has nevertheless been solved. In his great treatise on "The Descent of Fire," Dr. Kuhn has shown that all these legends and traditions are ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... flatterers the while, Brawlers, liars, jetters, and chiders, Walkers by night, with great murderers, Overthwart guile[rs] and jolly carders, Oppressors of people, with many swearers, There was false law with horrible vengeance, Froward obstination with mischievous governance, Wanton wenches, and also michers, With many other of the devil's officers; And hatred, that is so mighty and strong, Hath made a vow for ever to dwell ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... mighty course Of Elis at the goal will sweat, and shower Red foam-flakes from his mouth, or, kindlier task, With patient neck support the Belgian car. Then, broken at last, let swell their burly frame With fattening corn-mash, for, unbroke, they will With pride wax wanton, and, when caught, refuse Tough lash to brook or jagged curb obey. But no device so fortifies their power As love's blind stings of passion to forefend, Whether on steed or steer thy choice be set. Ay, therefore 'tis they banish bulls afar To solitary pastures, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... For him and his return to home and kin, He braves untold calamities, borne down By Fortune's waves, but never left to drown. The Sirens' song you know, and Circe's bowl: Had that sweet draught seduced his stupid soul As it seduced his fellows, he had been The senseless chattel of a wanton queen, Sunk to the level of his brute desire, An unclean dog, a swine that loves the mire. But what are we? a mere consuming class, Just fit for counting roughly in the mass, Like to the suitors, or Alcinous' ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... after he saw that a marriage was inevitable. The consequence was, as has been mentioned, that Markland, who possessed an independent spirit, would not go to the house of his father-in-law; and Mary, resenting the wanton attacks that had been made upon her husband's feelings in more than one or two instances, absented herself also. Mr. Howland, however much he might regret the hardness of his unavailing opposition, was not the man to yield anything; and so the breach remained open, ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... are represented as the voluntary slaves of the senses. Hence we shall find that the very principle of Comedy necessarily occasioned that which in Aristophanes has given so much offence; namely, his frequent allusions to the base necessities of the body, the wanton pictures of animal desire, which, in spite of all the restraints imposed on it by morality and decency, is always breaking loose before one can be aware of it. If we reflect a moment, we shall find that even in the present day, on our own stage, the infallible and inexhaustible ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... this is it, you can sit toying there, And playing with that female wanton boy, Whiles my AEneas wanders on the Seas, And rests a pray to euery billowes pride. Iuno, false Iuno in her Chariots pompe, Drawne through the heauens by Steedes of Boreas brood, Made ...
— The Tragedy of Dido Queene of Carthage • Christopher Marlowe
... the adoption of this peaceful policy which it will not be wise to overlook. If there be violent and wanton attacks upon the persons or the property of the citizens of the United States or of their government, I see not how demands for immediate redress can be avoided. If any interruptions should be attempted of the regular channels of trade on the great water-courses or on the ocean, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... grave consigned, of rival fame, A reverend Doctor and a wanton dame. Well for the world both did to rest retire, For each, while living, set mankind ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... I speak of she was still in the bloom of her beauty. The fame of that beauty was on every tongue, and had piqued the vanity of the wanton tyrant. For this reason I became the ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... when he was down at his great house in Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank who were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton luxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly leave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not been tampered with, and that the picture was still there. What ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... you are the governor of it, that you can use it at pleasure, and that it always obeys your order faithfully. Imagine body as separated from you. When it cries out, stop it instantly, as a mother does her baby. When it disobeys you, correct it by discipline, as a master does his pupil. When it is wanton, tame it down, as a horse-breaker does his wild horse. When it is sick, prescribe to it, as a doctor does to his patient. Imagine that you are not a bit injured, even if it streams blood; that you are entirely safe, even if it is drowned in water or ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... the infant, she bestowed with the utmost profuseness on the poor unknown mother, whom she called an impudent slut, a wanton hussy, an audacious harlot, a wicked jade, a vile strumpet, with every other appellation with which the tongue of virtue never fails to lash those who bring a disgrace ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... detail, the monuments of architecture belonging to the earlier Renaissance have a poetry that compensates for structural defects; just as its wildest literary extravagances—the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, for instance—have a charm of wanton fancy and young joy that atones to sympathetic ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Alexander Campbell, who commanded the division next to ours, by a wanton excess of zeal in expecting an order to follow, would not permit any thing belonging to us to pass the bridge, for fear of impeding the march of his troops; and, as he received no order to march, we were thereby prevented from getting any thing whatever to eat for the next thirty-six hours. ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... passes without contact with the Germans. This is an army in which every man has fought. Most of them have been in hand-to-hand conflict with the Germans. They have approached the front through a country which the enemy has devastated. There is no village which does not bear the mark of wanton destruction. I have seen these things for myself. Houses have been burned, others pillaged and the contents dragged into the streets and there smashed. Churches have been ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... Salle and the little group who remained true to him. A terrible plot was on foot. Presently the blow fell. Moranget, La Salle's nephew, was despatched with an axe; Nika, the faithful Shawanoe, and Saget, the leader's servant, were murdered as they slept. As for La Salle, a wanton bullet pierced his brain. Thus the man who had braved the poisoned arrows of the Iroquois and the hatchets of Indians without number, against whose iron strength deadly fevers had stormed in vain, whose fortitude had been unbroken by the almost incredible perversities ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... voyage—that it became necessary to fire at them. Not, however, until several of them had been killed did they take to flight, when they leapt overboard, and dived and swam for their lives. On this the Dutch, pursuing them in their boat, with what was certainly wanton cruelty, knocked several on the head, and took three prisoners and four of their canoes, the latter serving as fuel, of which they were ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... Mountain was tolerably level. Either the plunge in Rattlesnake Creek had dampened her baleful fire, or the art which led to it had shown her the superior wickedness of her rider, for Jovita no longer wasted her surplus energy in wanton conceits. Once she bucked, but it was from force of habit; once she shied, but it was from a new freshly painted meeting-house at the crossing of the county road. Hollows, ditches, gravelly deposits, patches of freshly springing grasses, flew from beneath her ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... antipathies, I do not say all; for some of them are truly natural, depend upon our original constitution, and are born with us; but a great part of those which are counted natural, would have been known to be from unheeded, though perhaps early, impressions, or wanton fancies at first, which would have been acknowledged the original of them, if they had been warily observed. A grown person surfeiting with honey no sooner hears the name of it, but his fancy immediately carries ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... mischievous king of the fairies, has been commonly identified with pogge, the toad, which was believed to sit upon most of the unwholesome fungi; and the Champignon (or Paddock Stool) was said to owe its growth to "those wanton elves whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms." One of the "toad stoo's" (the Clathrus cancellatus) is said to produce cancerous sores if handled too freely. It has an abominably disgusting odour, and is therefore named the "lattice stinkhorn." ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... precisely-built rocket had been reduced, by carefully-placed charges of explosive, to a collection of chunks of metal. Some were plates from the skin and fuel tanks. Others were large lumps from the computer-banks, gyro platform, fuel pumps, and other more massive components. This was not wanton destruction, however. It was more careful planning by the same brains which had devised the missile itself. To a radar set on the ground near the target, each fragment was indistinguishable from the nose cone carrying the warhead. In fact, ...
— Pushbutton War • Joseph P. Martino
... just above the slough, the hill Difficulty, the Interpreter's House, the place somewhat ascending with a cross standing upon it, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre, not to speak of her who assaulted Faithful, whose name was Wanton, and who at one time was like to have done even that trusty pilgrim a lifelong mischief. Christian rather boasted to Charity of his wariness, especially in the matter of his children's amusements, but Charity seemed to think that he had carried ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... what I had seen: some Frenchmen came up to me and requested me to report what I had witnessed to the Duke of Wellington; but, upon my telling them it would be of no avail, they one and all said the English ought to blush at having allies and friends capable of such wanton brutality. ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... possible, as a contemporary tradition informs us, that Wolsey was instigated to this by personal feelings. His arrogant and wanton proceedings, offensive by their excesses, and withal showing all the priestly love of power, were hateful to the inmost soul of the pure and earnest Queen. She is said to have once reproached him ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... what you do? Do you know what you risk? [Is there nothing - nothing! - will make you spare me this idiotic, wanton prosecution?] ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... to smoke and covered it with tobacco, so that when he lighted it the powder exploded and injured his eyes. The report of the Senate committee states that it does not appear that "any notice was taken of this wanton ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... Union. Do the annals of any constitutional Government in the world present so portentous a monument of Parliamentary failure, so vivid an example of a moral and material ruin "paved with good intentions"? Therein lies the pathos of it. Not from malice, not from cruelty, not from wanton injustice, not even from callous indifference to suffering and wrong, does our misgovernment of Ireland come. If the evil had its root in deliberate wrong-doing on the part of England it would probably have been cured long ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... the way continuously. By noontime, we found ourselves alongside of a lead covered by a film of young ice. We forced the dogs and they took it on the run, the ice undulating beneath them, the same as it does when little wanton boys play at tickley benders, often with serious results, on the newly formed ice on ponds and brooks down in civilization. Our tickley benders were not done in the spirit of play, but on account of urgent necessity, and as it was I ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... self. This strange phenomenon is subject, until it degenerates into a habit with long practice, to the caprices of character, and not seldom to an admirable delicacy of feeling in actresses who are still young. Coralie, to all appearance bold and wanton, as the part required, was in reality girlish and timid, and love had wrought in her a revulsion of her woman's heart against the comedian's mask. Art, the supreme art of feigning passion and feeling, had not yet triumphed over nature in her; she shrank before a great audience from ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... be regarded as a cunning and cowardly attempt to shift part of the odium on to the Government. Certainly the prestige of the Cabinet now fell to zero. Ministers were held responsible for Braxfield's wanton vagaries, and were accused of luring English democrats into the meshes of the Scottish law. This last charge is absurd. As we have seen, the London police sought to stop Margarot, Sinclair, and Gerrald ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... possible to the bruised spirit, but now the solitary instinct of the sick animal was upon him and he longed to be alone. Some sorrows are so personal they cannot be shared. Nor was it all sorrow. There was the passion of a fierce resentment, the bitter protest of helpless nature against a wanton and callous outrage. ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... the wanton impiety of their conduct called forth an immediate rebuke, even from the dead, a frown seemed to pass over Sir Piers's features, as their angry glances fell in that direction. This startling effect was occasioned by the approach of Lady Rookwood, whose shadow, falling over the ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... tame, may be easily shot. I would earnestly press on every member of the expedition a sacred regard to life, and never to destroy it unless some good end is to be answered by its extinction; the wanton waste of animal life which I have witnessed from night-hunting, and from the ferocious, but childlike, abuse of the instruments of destruction in the hands of Europeans, makes me anxious that this expedition should not be guilty of ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... of the nocturnal thief; though in open daylight a robber could not be slain without some previous evidence of danger and complaint. Whoever surprised an adulterer in his nuptial bed might freely exercise his revenge; the most bloody and wanton outrage was excused by the provocation; nor was it before the reign of Augustus that the husband was reduced to weigh the rank of the offender, or that the parent was condemned to sacrifice his daughter with ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... from the Priapeia (XXVI) that cymbals and castanets were the special accompaniment in antiquity of wanton songs and dances: "cymbala, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... and Trasimene or the nameless poor who first hammered out for himself an iron spade?" He condemned Scott's historical writings: "Strange," he said, "that a man should think he was writing the history of a nation while he is describing the amours of a wanton young woman and a sulky booby blown up with gunpowder." After having slighted biography in this characteristically Carlylese utterance, he straightway set to work, with splendid inconsistency, to base his philosophy of history mainly on the biographies of men of the ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... wanton wether had disdain'd the bounds That kept him close confin'd to Willy's grounds; Broke through the hedge, he wander'd far astray, He knew not whither on the public way. As Willy strives, with all attentive care, The fence to strengthen and ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... rider, with these insects, secured in little nets, or cages made of fine twigs woven together. The effect is marvellous, producing in the dark evening the appearance of a large moving body of light. "Many wanton, wild fellowes," as an old writer describes them, rub their faces with the flesh of a killed cucuius, as boys with us sometimes do with phosphorus, to frighten or ...
— Harper's Young People, September 14, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... or an unbridled desire, which is discoverable in all fools. And, therefore, when we are affected so as to be placed in any good condition, we are moved in two ways; for when the mind is moved in a placid and calm motion, consistent with reason, that is called joy; but when it exults with a vain, wanton exultation, or immoderate joy, then that feeling may be called immoderate ecstasy or transport, which they define to be an elation of the mind without reason. And as we naturally desire good things, so in like manner we naturally seek to avoid what is evil; ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... porter's knot, but carry their burden upon their heads. They appeared to be a miserable race, worn out by the united operation of excessive labour and ill usage; and Mr. Cook was sorry to observe, and to say, that instances of wanton cruelty were much more frequent among his countrymen at St. Helena, than among the Dutch, who are generally reproached with want of humanity, both at Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope. It is impossible for a feeling mind to avoid ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... Twirling-stick Mike to repent him suddenly of his wanton cruelty. The scoffing words of the dwarf rang in his ears, and he felt by no means easy. To make what amends he might to the deceased, he had him sumptuously buried at his own expense, with funeral oration, psalms, prayer, and benediction; and what is more, put up a very pretty monument ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... whereupon I begged to know what he had heard. He was very unwilling to tell me, but it came out at last that Dermot and Harold—being, he feared, in an improperly excited condition—had insisted on going to the den with the keeper, and had irritated the animal by wanton mischief, and he was convinced that this could not have ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mean Sir, is not immaginary, invented by Slander and Malice, but a true Copy of a universally known Original, which is a trifling, wanton femal Rake: composed of Folly, rudeness, and Indecency. whose Vanity is in pursuit of ev'ry Fellow of Fashion She Sees, and whose Life is a ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... and occasionally he passed an evening there; but his habit was to go home to Guildford Street, and sit hour after hour in languid brooding. He feared the streets at night-time; in his loneliness and misery, a gleam upon some wanton face would perchance have lured him, as had happened ere now. Not so much at the bidding of his youthful blood, as out of mere longing for companionship, the common cause of disorder in men condemned to solitude in great cities. A woman's voice, the touch of a soft hand—this ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... management was not spared. More than one speaker waxed eloquent over what he declared was wanton waste of the greatest amount of money ever intrusted to an exposition management, which wanton waste had made the Exposition Company bankrupt and again at the doors of the Treasury begging for funds. Those ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... released. The suddenness of her reputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other children, at the time—all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin—jealousy perhaps, or wanton ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... in the form of a galilee, is scarcely to be excelled as a specimen of pointed architecture at its highest pitch of luxuriant beauty. Yet, even in this, the saints have been torn from their pedestals by the wanton violence of the Calvinists or democrats. The central tower is square and short: it is, however, handsome. Two windows, very similar to those of the tower of St. Romain, in Rouen cathedral, light it on either side; and saints, placed ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... told it to him freely, of her own volition. It was not in the nature of her to keep her secret. She had told it to him, a stranger; she would tell it to other strangers—or else somebody would betray her. And surely this sickly, slack-twisted little wanton would be better off inside the strong arm of the law than outside it? No jury of Southern men would convict her of murder—the thought was incredible. She would be kindly dealt with. In one illuminating flash the major divined that these would have been the inevitable ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... head the stranger wore a white veil of rich material, which was fastened above her brow by a single diamond of unusual size and brilliant luster. When the veil was drawn aside, shining auburn tresses were seen depending in wanton luxuriance over shoulders of alabaster whiteness: a beautiful but deadly pale countenance was revealed; and a splendid purple velvet dress delineated the soft and flowing outlines of a form modeled to ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... of Naples and the Bay of Baia, and from its windows commanded the same exquisite view which had charmed Cicero and Lucullus, Severus and the Antonines. Hard by stood Baia, the princely seaside resort of the empire. That most luxurious and wanton of all cities of antiquity survived the cataclysms of ages, and only lost its civic continuity and became the ruined village of to-day in the sack of the fifteenth century. But a continuity of wickedness is not so easily broken, and those who know ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... people the legislative action of Congress. It is a subject of congratulation that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the bank found itself powerless and no longer able to loan out its surplus means. The community ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... cause; yet she had not perhaps altogether announced herself as straining so hard at the cord. It was familiar, it was beautiful to Mrs. Stringham that she had arrears to make up, the chances that had lapsed for her through the wanton ways of forefathers fond of Paris, but not of its higher sides, and fond almost of nothing else; but the vagueness, the openness, the eagerness without point and the interest without pause—all a part of the charm of her oddity as at first presented—had ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... they dismembered the singer and threw him to the waves; but the very fragments were melodious and reached the Muses, who buried them where the nightingale still sings "Eurydice." So runs the allegory; even drowned by earthly clamors, slain and torn by wanton hands, the song of Poetry ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... ladies," said the head-mistress in that slightly vibrating and authoritative voice of hers. "I have a word or two to say to you all. Miss Good has just brought me a painful story of wanton and cruel mischief. There are fifty girls in this school, who, until lately, lived happily together. There is now one girl among the fifty whose object it is to sow seeds of discord and misery among her companions. ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... a river was near. They dream along the meads, toying with their forget-me-nots, too idle even to make love to their flowers vigorously. The brown Barle enjoys his life, and splashes in the sunshine like boys bathing—like them he is sunburnt and brown. He throws the wanton spray over the ferns that bow and bend as the cool breeze his current brings sways them in the shade. He laughs and talks, and sings louder than the wind ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... (but not really more curious than most human affairs), that Pete (or Mr. Corcoran) whether he was merely chaffing us, or whether he was really curious about a scarf of such wanton colour scheme, should have mentioned it just when he did, for as a matter of fact that tie had been on our mind all morning. You see to-day being warm (and please remember that what we call to-day, is now, when you are reading this, yesterday) we did not wear our waistcoat, or, if you ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... appears no adequate cause[17], for he does nothing which he might not have done with the reputation of sanity. He plays the madman most, when he treats Ophelia with so much rudeness, which seems to be useless and wanton cruelty. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... three as into one box; but how, in the name of nature—or art—does the nautical gentleman get out of the double sack in which he is tied? I cannot bring myself to print what Dr. Sexton's theory of the box is, because it appears to be such a wanton cruelty to "expose" things when people go to the Egyptian Hall on purpose to be mystified. I remember how the fact of having seen Dr. Sexton do the trick of reading the names in the hat spoilt my enjoyment of Dr. Lynn's ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... matter? As I deem, We shall but follow as brave a dream As ever smiled a wanton May Over the hills ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... sharp gaze upon him. He was a tall, shambling fellow with a white cloth swathed about the top of his head; and Varney, in the act of passing, suddenly recognized him as the dog man, whom Peter had knocked out the night before. His gaze was a wanton challenge for the young man to stop, ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... which the two of England and Russia, who had already borne it, had clouded its immortality. She had never, in any way, interfered in political events. Malice itself had never whispered a circumstance to her dispraise. After this wanton assassination, it is scarcely to be expected that the innocent and candid looks and streaming azure eyes of that angelic infant, the Dauphin, though raised in humble supplication to his brutal assassins, with an eloquence which would have disarmed the savage tiger, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... admirable burst of speed, still grasping the neck of the shattered bottle. The new gilt weather-cock on Judge Riley's lemon and ultramarine two-story residence shivered, flapped, and hung by a splinter, the sport of the wanton breezes. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... licentious proud, Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround; They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth, And wanton, often cruel, riot waste; Ah! little think they, while they dance along, How many feel, this very moment, death And all the sad variety of pain. How many sink in the devouring flood, Or more devouring flame; how many bleed, By shameful ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... that invisible being, like a whirlwind, caught me up and bore me away into a large room, where he made himself visible to my eyes in human form, appearing like a young man whose beard is just growing, with a face of indescribable beauty, but austere, not wanton. He bade me look around the room, and said: "The crowd of men thou seest in this place are all those who up to this day have been born and afterwards have died upon the earth." Thereupon I asked him why he brought me hither, and he answered: "Come with me and thou shalt soon ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene. The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, The birds sang love on ev'ry spray, Till too, too soon, the glowing west Proclaim'd the speed of ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... readily discover, that the only chisel ever employed has been the tooth of time—the only artists engaged, the elements. Some years ago, the upper, or logging-stone, was thrown from its equilibrium by the bodily exertions of some sailors; but a general cry of indignation having been raised against this wanton act, it was shortly afterwards reinstated in nearly its original position by the perpetrators of the mischief, who, while thus making honourable amends for their former folly, evinced great ingenuity and skilfulness.—Fisher's Views in ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... compassionates their weakness and wickedness. It will desire, therefore, as much as possible, to hide them from the public gaze, unless the good of others should require their exposure; and even then, will not do it with wanton feelings. But these remarks apply with much greater force to the practice of Christians speaking of one another's faults. Where is the heart that would not revolt at the idea of brothers and sisters scanning each other's faults, in the ears of strangers? ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... came back, bringing her mistress with her. Ts'ui, this time, was languid and flushed, yielding and wanton in her air, as though her strength could scarcely support her limbs. Her ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... reach there is nothing to be seen but decayed fangs, protruding from a swamp of filth, covered with a green slime where water has accumulated. This is not the unavoidable ruin of shell-fire. No battle was fought here. The demolition was the wanton spite of an enemy who, because he could not hold the place, was determined to leave nothing serviceable behind. With such masterly thoroughness has he done his work that the spot can never be re-peopled. The surrounding fields are too poisoned and churned up for cultivation. The French Government ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... the shelter of a mask disdain'd, When Folly triumph'd, and a Nero reign'd, Petronius rose satiric, yet polite, And show'd the glaring monster full in sight; To public mirth exposed the imperial beast, And made his wanton court ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... before the governor, and so roughly handled by the populace that he died two days after he was thrown into confinement. The other prisoners were plied with hunger and thirst, and then put to death with wanton and studied cruelty. Two of the sufferers, Blandina, a female, and Ponticus, a lad of fifteen, displayed singular calmness and intrepidity. For several days they were obliged to witness the tortures inflicted on their fellow-disciples, that they might, if possible, be intimidated by the appalling ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... described. General Sherman had heard of the assassination when the capitulation was made, and could not have been ignorant of the feeling it had aroused. On the face of the proceeding his action seemed a wanton betrayal of the country to its enemies; but when this betrayal followed so swiftly the frightful tragedy which was then believed to have been instigated by the Confederate authorities, the patience of the people became ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... the result of deep and calm reflection. We have arrived to that grade, that, although we have the power to inflict, we are too high to receive insult, but we have not forgotten how our young blood has boiled when wanton, reckless, and cruel torture has been heaped upon our feelings, merely because, as a junior officer, we were not in a position to retaliate, or even to reply. And another evil is, that this great error is disseminated. In observing on it, in one of our works, called "Peter Simple," ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... and the warm blood that runs into song, chiefly because song is the voice of a joy. And no doubt, when I look back on the past years I must own that I have too often been led astray from the objects set before my reason, and cherished at my heart, by erring impulse or wanton fancy." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... exacting moral and aesthetic standards; it openly flouts the attitude of obedience and humility before religious mandates, and, so far as opportunity offers or prudence permits, goes its own insolently wanton way. Our world is full of dilettanti in the colleges, anarchists in the state, atheists in the church, bohemians in art, sybarites in conduct and ineffably silly women in society, who have felt, and occasionally studied the scientific ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... Frolick, and form, and wanton playfulness, And some unspoken radiant vanity, And some enrapturing bewitching charm, And perfect virgin beauty are your own! Fading like gods' pale images, you seem! Even the bird sometimes bows ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... her eyes to judge by he might have doubted if it was indeed Elizabeth, but he knew her by the gesture of her hand, by the grace of a wanton little curl that floated over her ear as she moved her head. Something was said to her, and she turned smiling tolerantly to the man beside her, a little man in foolish raiment knobbed and spiked like some odd reptile with pneumatic horns—the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... soon solicited to violate the treaty, and to join his arms with the Venetians, the perpetual enemies of Genoa and her colonies. While he compared the reasons of peace and war, his moderation was provoked by a wanton insult of the inhabitants of Pera, who discharged from their rampart a large stone that fell in the midst of Constantinople. On his just complaint, they coldly blamed the imprudence of their engineer; but the next day the insult was repeated; and they exulted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... At another of the loops, about as thick as your arm, your companion, if you have a forester with you, will spring joyfully. With a few blows of his cutlass he will sever it as high up as he can reach, and again below, some three feet down, and, while you are wondering at this seemingly wanton destruction, he lifts the bar on high, throws his head back, and pours down his thirsty throat a pint or more of pure cold water. This hidden treasure is, strange as it may seem, the ascending sap, or rather the ascending pure rain-water which has been taken up by the roots, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... love to see my lady's hair Coiled low like Clytie's—with no wanton curl.' But I, like any silly, wilful girl, Said, 'Donald likes it high,' and wore ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... blind, and a wanton; In the whole world, there is scant one ——Such another: No, not his mother. He hath pluck'd her doves and sparrows, To feather his sharp arrows, And alone prevaileth, While sick Venus waileth. But if Cypris ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... would involve extra labour; the people would have to go further to their work, and the stones would have to be drawn further. The priest held that the extra labour was of secondary importance. He said that to make two roads running parallel with each other would be a wanton humiliation ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... She laughed, and the lurking echoes clasped the music of that laughter in their wanton arms and ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... and applauding it, Germans of high rank said it presented direct and confirmatory proof of their claim that sheer wanton reprisals were practically unknown in their system of warfare. Perhaps I can best set forth the German attitude in this regard by quoting a general whom we ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... into the Hall, and there the Lieutenant of the Tower took me with him, and would have me to the Tower to dinner; where I dined at the head of his table next his lady, who is comely and seeming sober and stately, but very proud and very cunning or I am mistaken, and wanton too. This day's work will bring the Lieutenant of the Tower 350l. Thence home, and upon Tower Hill saw about 3 or 400 seamen get together; and one standing upon a pile of bricks made his sign with his handkercher upon his stick, and called all the rest to him, and several shouts they gave. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... The wanton youths less violently shake thy fastened windows with their redoubled knocks, nor do they rob you of your rest; and your door, which formerly moved its yielding hinges freely, now sticks lovingly to its threshold. Less and less often do you now hear: "My Lydia, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... men, women, and children, asleep or basking in the sun, some in motion busied with their goods, the women employed in washing or cooking in the open air, beside the wood fires on the beach; while parties of children are pursuing each other in wanton glee rejoicing in their newly-acquired liberty. Mixed with these you see the stately form and gay trappings of the sentinels, while the thin blue smoke of the wood fires, rising above the trees, heightens the picture and gives it an additional effect. On my husband remarking the ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... Humour, on which the People set a greater Value, than on the wisest and most instructive Discourses. Hence a pleasant Man is always caress'd above a wise one, and Ridicule and Satyr, that entertain the Laughers, often put solid Reason and useful Science out of Countenance. The wanton Temper of the Nation has been gratify'd so long with the high Seasonings of Wit and Raillery in Writing and Conversation, that now almost all Things that are not accommodated to their Relish by a strong Infusion of those Ingredients, are ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... the company of a more refined, licentious sort of people, and taking to all their wanton ways rushed into the opposite extreme from an abhorrence of his father's meanness. At last, being a better man than his corruptors, he was drawn in both directions until he halted midway and led a life, not of ...
— The Republic • Plato
... and refined old clergyman to Miss Norah Hood, he found himself shaking hands with a grave young person of unassertive beauty. Hers was the loveliness of the violet, which is apt to pall in this modern day—to aggravate, and to suggest wanton waste. For feminine loveliness is on the wane— marred, like many other good things, by over-education. Norah Hood was a typical country parson's daughter, who knew the right and did it, ignored the wrong and refused to believe ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... live peaceably, but I have lately experienced so many instances of your most bare-faced and wanton oppression, to my prejudice, that there's no longer a doubt with me what course I must be under the disagreeable necessity to take, that I may obtain redress and do justice to myself and family. I shall expect your immediate answer for my ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... she displayed. She was in her usual negligent undress— all her class are the same in the mornings—of a loose shift and stuff petticoat. Her bosom was bare, her bare feet were in slippers; for her hair she had but a single pin. It was to be seen that the men viewed her with admiration, as some wanton newly from her bed. They used an easy familiarity not at all pleasant; one of them, who could not take his eyes off her, said nothing, the other put his hand on her waist. I was angry with her, I confess without reason. She disengaged herself. I heard her ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... immediately rises to the hero's plane. The noble colored soldiers who won medals on that occasion were all privates and became heroes for humanity's sake. Their names deserve a place in this history outside the mere official table. They were Dennis Bell, George H. Wanton, Fitz Lee and William H. Tompkins, and were the only colored soldiers who, at the time of this writing, have won Medals of Honor in the Spanish War. Others, however, may yet be given, as doubtless others are ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... gloss is gone that looked at first so gaudy; 'Tis now no jest to hear young girls talk bawdry. But plots and parties give new matters birth, And state distractions serve you here for mirth. At England's cost poets now purchase fame; While factious heats destroy us, without shame, These wanton Neroes fiddle to the flame; The stage, like old rump-pulpits, is become The scene of news, a furious party's drum: Here poets beat their brains for volunteers, And take fast hold of asses by their ears; Their jingling rhimes for reason here you swallow, Like Orpheus' ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... officer and soldier to assist and elevate them, a sacred duty which is devolved upon the Army, an added burden which must be borne; and every American relies upon our troops to execute this sacred trust. So far there has been no act of wanton despoilment, injury or insult; let none ever be charged to an American soldier. Our flag is an emblem of freedom and honor, and it remains with you that it shall become such an emblem to the Moros, and ever ...
— The Battle of Bayan and Other Battles • James Edgar Allen
... break, The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop And play with ocean in a summer mood. Hanging above the high, wide open door, It brings to us in quiet, firelit room, The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes, Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll, And seabirds scream in wanton happiness. ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... handsome enough, the Girl not quite so comely. They were both very young, and happened one day to be playing near the looking-glass, which stood on their mother's toilet. The Boy, pleased with the novelty of the thing, viewed himself for some time, and in a wanton, roguish manner observed to the Girl how handsome he was. She resented the insult, and ran immediately to her father, and, with a great deal of aggravation, complained of her brother, particularly for having acted so effeminate a part as to look in ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... obvious reasons, say nothing. What cares the world for our as yet miniature Philosopher's achievements under that "brave old Linden "? Or even where is the use of such practical reflections as the following? "In all the sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages and defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct (schaffenden Trieb): the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, that his vocation is to work. The choicest present you can make him is a Tool; be it knife or pen-gun, for construction or for destruction; either ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... when the evening star, rising, warned him to leave the field, And he led back his well-fed flock to their stalls, he perceived That the beasts did not close their eyes in sweet sleep, but Joyous beyond their wont, with wonderful delight throughout the Whole night jumped about with wanton leaps. Trembling with sudden Fear, the shepherd stood amazed; and crazed by the sound, he Thought these things were being done through some wicked trick of a neighbor, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... course was doubtless none the purer for having been frozen at its source. The world is a long time being saved from itself, and it has had to go back for many fresh starts. If the beautiful women whose wickedness is recorded by the court painters in a convention of wanton looks, rather than by a severally faithful portraiture, can be regarded simply as a part of the inevitable reaction from a period when men had allowed women to be better, we shall not have so much difficulty in ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... grateful exchange, was the Mother Mild of the Roman Catholic Pantheon, the patroness of the broken-hearted, who inclines her countenance graciously to the petitions of womanly anguish, for the voluptuous Aphrodite, the haughty Juno, the Di-Vernonish Artemis, and the lewd and wanton nymphs of forest, mountain, ocean, lake, and river. Ceres alone, of the old female classic daemons, seemed to be endowed with a truly womanly tenderness and regard for humankind. She, like the Mater Dolorosa, is represented in the myths to have known bereavement ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... passed through one turnpike, and Delia had endeavoured by cries and prayers to obtain some assistance. But the person who opened to them was alone, and though ever so desirous, could not have resisted such a cavalcade. Beside this, the pimp told him a plausible story of a wanton wife, and an injured husband, with the particulars of which we do not think it necessary to trouble our readers. They had also seen one foot passenger, and two horsemen. But they were eluded and amused by a repetition of the ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... you that the mere wanton wandering of a capricious mind was not the cause of my estrangement from you. There has been a great deception practised—the exact nature of it I cannot tell you plainly just at present; it is too painful—but it is all over, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... nations, and of the positive stipulations of treaty; and that since they had given these directions, they had actually declared war against his majesty and the United Provinces. The message continued—"Under the circumstances of this wanton and unprovoked aggression, his majesty has taken the necessary steps to maintain the honour of his crown, and to vindicate the rights of his people; and his majesty relies with confidence on the firm and effectual support of the house of commons, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... derangements. Madame, however, pained Zoe extremely with her imprudent acts, her sudden fits of unwisdom, her mad bravado. Still the lady's maid grew gradually lenient, for she had noticed that she made increased profits in seasons of wanton waste when Madame had committed a folly which must be made up for. It was then that the presents began raining on her, and she fished up many a louis ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... grossly ignorant to perform, intelligently, the duties of the soldier; that his provocation had been so great as a slave, that when once armed, and conscious of his power as a soldier, he would abuse it by acts of revenge and wanton cruelty. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... appeared in sight; and, after a desperate engagement with her, in which Walsingham was severely wounded, and every other officer on board killed or wounded, Walsingham saw that nothing was left but to make a wanton sacrifice of the remainder of his crew, or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... that know the very Nerues of State, His giuing-out, were of an infinite distance From his true meant designe: vpon his place, (And with full line of his authority) Gouernes Lord Angelo; A man, whose blood Is very snow-broth: one, who neuer feeles The wanton stings, and motions of the sence; But doth rebate, and blunt his naturall edge With profits of the minde: Studie, and fast He (to giue feare to vse, and libertie, Which haue, for long, run-by the hideous law, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... from the coast through the great mountains by unknown paths, and as they travelled, the sailor died; and they came at last through innumerable hardships to the Kimash Hills, the hills of the Mighty Men, and there they stayed. It was not an evil land; it had neither deadly cold in winter nor wanton heat in summer. But they never saw a human face, and everything was lonely and spectral. For a time they strove to go eastwards or southwards but the mountains were impassable, and in the north and west there was no hope. Though the buffalo swept by them in the valley they could not slay them, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... tone in times past, who had stood up for Tract 90 partly from faith in me, and certainly from generous and kind feeling, and had thereby shared an obloquy which was none of theirs, were naturally surprised and offended at a line of argument, novel, and, as it appeared to them, wanton, which threw the whole controversy into confusion, stultified my former principles, and substituted, as they would consider, a sort of methodistic self-contemplation, especially abhorrent both to my nature and to my past professions, for ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... not escape, That dreadful hour, when Contumely and Shame Shall sojourn in thy dungeon. Wretched Maid! Destined to drain the cup of bitterness, Even to its dregs! England's inhuman Chiefs Shall scoff thy sorrows, black thy spotless fame, Wit-wanton it with lewd barbarity, And force such burning blushes to the cheek Of Virgin modesty, that thou shalt wish The earth might cover thee! in that last hour, When thy bruis'd breast shall heave beneath the chains That link thee to the stake; when o'er thy form, Exposed unmantled, ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... be true, but this Daws Dillon has sent a similar message to the Commandant, and he has just been in here again and committed two wanton outrages night before last. The Commandant is enraged and has issued orders ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... to which Sarah Siddons's was empty air, on pain of instant death enforces silence from a man unable for his life to utter a single word; and after pulling off all the bed-clothes, and then clothing you with curses, the ruffians, whose accent betrays them to be Irishmen, inflict upon you divers wanton wounds with a blunt instrument, probably a crow-bar—swearing by Satan and all his saints, that if you stir an inch of your body before daybreak, they will instantly return, cut your throat, knock out your brains, sack you, and carry you off ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... lighted by the same spirit and freedom of nature that is around you now? Who knows, but that after tracking you through the spring and the summer of Youth, we shall find frosted Age settling upon you heavily and solemnly in the very fields where you wanton to-day? ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... and it had been going on for years. They went on producing and producing, long after they had ceased to have anything to say, racking their brains to find something new, something more sensational, more bizarre: for the public was surfeited and sick of everything, and soon wearied of even the most wanton imaginary pleasures: they had always to go one better—better than the rest, better than their own best—and they squeezed out their very life-blood, they squeezed out their guts: it was a ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... shall ghaist them—if they had their heads as muckle on their wark as on their daffing they wad play na sic pliskies—it's the wanton steed that scaurs at the windlestrae. Ghaists! wha e'er heard of ghaists in an honest ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... captains. Theodomir was frank and abrupt in speech, for the most of his life had been passed far from courts. He delivered, in round terms, the message of the Prince Ataulpho; upbraiding the Arab general with his wanton invasion of the land, and summoning him to surrender his army, or ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... me now, Will to the wanton sorc'ress say, "Begone! Respect the cypress on my mournful brow, Lost Happiness hath left regret—but thou ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... High unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp plights, Must now grow staid, and censure the delights, That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise, As having parted: evenings crown the days. 10 And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires, Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires, Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances, Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances, And you detested Charms constraining love! Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove. By this, the sovereign ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... 'tis thy Queen, Who 'as laid aside the Business of her State, To wanton in the kinder Joys of Love— Play all your sweetest Notes, such as inspire The active Soul with new and soft Desire, [To the Musick, they play softly. Whilst we from Eyes—thus dying, fan the Fire. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... relish, better, I think, than he can—for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not care for such water-parties. How we would sally forth into the fields; and strip under the first warmth of the sun; and wanton like young dace in the streams; getting appetites for the noon; which those of us that were penny less (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying—while the cattle, and the birds, and the fishes were at feed about us, and we had nothing ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... liberties, delicious, wanton liberties, Jerry alone of all on board could take them with the man and woman, and, on the other hand, they were the only two to whom he permitted liberties. Any indignity that Villa Kennan chose to inflict upon him he was throbbingly ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... out of SHALNASSAR'S hand). Go thou to bed thyself, hot-headed Ganem, And leave together them that would be joined. Rebuke thy father not. An older man Can pass a sounder judgment, is more faithful Than wanton youth. Hast thou not company? Old Bachtjar's daughter stands there in the darkness, And often I've been told that she is fair. I know right well, thou wast in love with her. So then good night. [They all ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... "This wanton sacrifice of horrors speaks eloquently of a forlorn hope! Sweep the walls with light, Kennedy; all those filthy things are nocturnal and they will retreat before us ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... in the Wanton and Witty, He haunts both the Church and the Court, And sometimes he visits the City, Where ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... the lower classes, greedy for spoil, sacked and destroyed their houses, and pulled down and burned their towers and palaces with such outrageous fury, that the most cruel enemy of the Florentine name would have been ashamed of taking part in such wanton destruction. ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... saw a great crowd coming from Westminster, before a caravan of strange animals and savages in masks, capering and capricolling, dragging after them divers sledges quaintly fashioned like swannes, in which were ladies attired as fairies and goddesses and such like heathen and wanton trumpery, which I, as a plain, blunt man, would have fallen to cursing, had not my Lord himself damned me under his breath to hold my peace, for that he had recognized my Lord of Leicester's colours and that he made no doubt they were of the Court. As forsooth this ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... It is a wanton fancy; and perhaps no really barbarous people is capable of so overturning the innocent plan of original portraiture. To make a mental image of all things that are named to the ear, or conceived in the mind, being an industrious custom of children and childish people which lapses in the age ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... gay, that fan the air, And wanton through the grove, Oh, whisper to my charming fair, I'd die for ...
— Old Ballads • Various
... they gave themselves up to the free and careless life of former days. They had only changed their residence, not their character; their dreams were of future victories, of the many provinces they would take from the King of Prussia; and with this delightful prospect the old gay, luxurious, and wanton life was continued. What difference did it make to Count Bruhl that the army was only provided with commissary stores for fourteen days, and that this time was almost past, and no way had been found to furnish them with additional supplies. The King of Prussia had garrisoned every outlet, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... experiments are performed which are in their nature beyond any legitimate province of science, and that the pain which they inflict is pain which it is not justifiable to inflict even for the scientific object in view, he readily acknowledges that he does not know a single case of wanton cruelty, and that in general the English physiologists have used anaesthetics where they think they can do so with safety to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... has occasion for. The white hunter destroys all before him, and cannot resist the opportunity of killing game, although he neither wants the meat nor can carry the skins. I was particularly struck with this wanton practice, which lately occurred on White river. A hunter returning from the woods, heavily laden with the flesh and skins of five bears, unexpectedly arrived in the midst of a drove of buffalos, and wantonly shot down three, having no other object than the sport of killing ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... stems at the distance of about two feet from the ground, and then pulled or pushed down. [PLATE CXI., Fig. 2.] Other trees were either treated similarly, or denuded of their branches. Occasionally the destruction was of a less wanton and vengeful character. Timber-trees were cut down for transport to Assyria, where they were used in the construction of the royal-palaces; and fruit-trees were occasionally taken up by the roots, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Sentinel, of Indianapolis, quoted Mr. Storey's articles, and said, with great regret, that it was only too true of Indianapolis also, judging by the wanton manners of troops of the girls attending ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... River which Lamb recalls with so much relish, better, I think, than he can—for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not care much for such water-parties. How we would sally forth into the fields, and strip under the first warmth of the sun, and wanton like young dace in the streams, getting appetites for the noon; which those of us that were penniless (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had not the means of allaying—while the cattle and the birds ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... States were on the verge of war. In 1807 the long series of wrongs inflicted by England upon the commerce of America, and the rights of her seaman, had been consummated by the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake. This wanton insult had thrown the country into violent commotion, and occasioned the embargo act, which had been succeeded by the non-intercourse act, prohibiting all commerce with France and England, until the decrees of the French emperor and the British orders in council in relation ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... Constantinople. The annals of those days, which seem to be credible, state that he floated down the Dnieper with ten thousand barges, and spread his sails upon the waves of the Euxine. Entering the Bosporus, he landed on both shores of that beautiful strait, and, with the most wanton barbarity, ravaged the country far and near, massacring the inhabitants, pillaging the towns and committing all ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... cruel will, of love-inciting Venus, Who takes delight in wanton sport and ill-considered jokes, And brings ridiculous misfits beneath her brazen yokes,— A very infelicitous proceeding, ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... breeds more falsehoods than the cunning of the sharper. 3. As poverty waits upon the steps of indolence, so upon such poverty brood equivocations, subterfuges, lying denials. 4. Falsehood becomes the instrument of every plan. 5. Negligence of truth, next occasional falsehood, then wanton mendacity—these three strides traverse the whole road ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... Muller sees a myth of sun and dawn, Kuhn recognises a fire-myth. Roth, again (whose own name means red), far from thinking that Urvasi is 'the chaste dawn,' interprets her name as die geile, that is, 'lecherous, lascivious, lewd, wanton, obscene'; while Pururavas, as 'the Roarer,' suggests 'the Bull in rut.' In accordance with these views Roth explains the myth in a fashion of ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... seemed as though this wanton and most reprehensible invasion of private rights was regarded by those in authority as a high and meritorious action. It was certainly so regarded by "the best society" of York at the time. The young men, who ought to have been made to suffer social ostracism, were petted ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... fault. And now he wants to educate you in the same school. Lucretia Kingsley is correct,—oil and water are more fit to be mated than you and Mr. Spence. You have broken her heart, too, by your wanton conduct, Virginia. Her sympathy for Mr. Spence ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... seen your brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, rivers, ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... by exercising itself. For what Caecilius means by "old dotards of the comic stage" are the credulous, the forgetful, and the slipshod. These are faults that do not attach to old age as such, but to a sluggish, spiritless, and sleepy old age. Young men are more frequently wanton and dissolute than old men; but yet, as it is not all young men that are so, but the bad set among them, even so senile folly—usually called imbecility—applies to old men of unsound character, not to all. Appius governed four sturdy sons, five daughters, that great establishment, and all ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... this day was different from what Campbell had expected, for Le Succes of fifty guns appeared in sight; and, after a desperate engagement with her, in which Walsingham was severely wounded, and every other officer on board killed or wounded, Walsingham saw that nothing was left but to make a wanton sacrifice of the remainder of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... the man was composed was only fused into greater firmness by being subjected to such fiery tests. On leaving Trinidad, this eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he had loved and worked for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and belongings of the inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; the means by which honest and laborious industry could, through agriculture, benefit both itself and the general revenue. He also left an educational system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... meetings went on: some ten, twelve, fifteen occurred,—still no breach of the peace, no disturbance. The language, indeed, became gradually more seditious—more daring and ferocious: but, as an attempt to put down the first meeting by force would have been considered a wanton act of oppression, and a direct interference with the subject's right to petition, it became a very difficult practical question, at what moment any legal notice could be taken by prosecution, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... of them, who had a fine ruddy complexion and heavy golden-red hair, stood and greeted him so graciously with her downcast eyes, as if she was quite distressed that they should play such wanton pranks with a ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... the Lord are threatened by that adulterous king and his proud ministers, who swear they will strip us to the shirt and turn us out to starve. I'm but just from London, and, although our enemy Anne Boleyn has lost her wanton head, I tell you the danger is great. Money must be had to stir up rebellion, for who can arm without it, and but little comes from Spain. I am in treaty to sell the Foterell lands for what they will fetch, but as yet ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... he could not count, the words that had to be said had risen to his lips. But they had never crossed them—in spite of the wanton greenness of the woods, which should have been the very frame in which to tell a woman you loved her. But not one drop of her nervous exaltation was meant for him: she had never shown, by the least sign, that she cared ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... that I was quite ready to renew the combat proposed to resign Laura to me. I fancied, however, that they would like a repetition of their previous engagement, and he was evidently perfectly able to renew it, for, indeed, the wanton boy had been so wound up by the preliminary scene that his former encounter had produced hardly any relaxing effect upon his lovely weapon. I therefore drew him upon the not unwilling Laura, and again guiding the fiery courser into the lists of pleasure, had the satisfaction of seeing ...
— Laura Middleton; Her Brother and her Lover • Anonymous
... when you go a-shopping, Without an escort loaded up with lead; Always maintain a desultory popping At anyone who wags a wanton head; If, as he passes, some low boy should whistle With nose in air and shameless chin out-thrust, Making your scandalised moustaches bristle— ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... details to attract the eye; no gorgeous colour-patterns or pleasing irregularities of form; the frosted beauty of the scene appeals rather to the intelligence. Contrasted with the wanton blaze of green, the contorted trunks and labyrinthine shadow-meanderings of our woodlands, these palm groves, despite their frenzied exuberance, figure forth the idea of reserve and chastity; an impression ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... young dyer whose dissolute habits have brought on tuberculosis of the lungs. The principal object of his amours is the wife of a friend. A violent hemorrhage warns him of approaching death. Stricken with fear he rushes to the nearest statue of the Madonna and registers a vow; he will marry a wanton, effect her redemption, thereby hoping to save his own miserable life. The heroine of the opera appears and she meets his requirements. He marries her and for a while she seems blest. But the siren, the Lola in the case, winds ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... it impossible to regard the actions of the enemy with a favourable eye,—an honest citizen this, whose desire is, that while political considerations shall always receive due weight, the demands of morality shall never be overlooked; one who, while the enemy is borne along in his wanton course of good fortune, cannot forbear to point with warning finger to the inevitable consequences, and in his bitterest disaster can with difficulty find him worthy ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had committed—for murder it was, that was its true name, and it was without palliation or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It made us miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and so beautiful and gracious, and had honestly believed he was an ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... houses of the olive farmers and their quaint little Noah's ark cypresses, to the full height of Portofino Kulm, where the whole enchanted coast-line of the Riviera from Genoa to Sestri Levante lay spread out as a jewelled fringe of ocean. Elaine stood hatless while the wanton breeze caressed her glorious hair and caught at her skirts with ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... oppose their progress, and plundered, with impunity, the cities of Illyricum and Thrace, each of which had arms and numbers to overwhelm their contemptible assailants. Whatever praise the boldness of the Sclavonians may deserve, it is sullied by the wanton and deliberate cruelty which they are accused of exercising on their prisoners. Without distinction of rank, or age, or sex, the captives were impaled or flayed alive, or suspended between four posts, and beaten with clubs till they expired, or enclosed in some spacious ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... to be free and to govern itself, and generously strives to be so, there go all its sympathies. It detests the tyrant, the lawless oppressor, the military usurper, and him who abuses a lawful power. It frowns upon cruelty, and a wanton disregard of the rights of humanity. It abhors the selfish employer, and exerts its influence to lighten the burdens which want and dependence impose upon the workman, and to foster that humanity ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... we passed through on that day had been pillaged to the fullest extent. Not content with ransacking the interior of each house, the soldiers had broken up every article of furniture, and with wanton destruction had thrown everything portable out of the windows. Each street was filled with a mass of debris consisting of household effects of every kind, all lying in inextricable confusion one on top of the other, forming barricades—from end to end of a street—many feet ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... above tribe of the Arcadians, had for many years before occupied these districts, is said to have appointed the observance of a solemn festival, introduced from Arcadia, in which naked youths ran about doing honour in wanton sport to Pan Lycaeus, who was afterward called Inuus by the Romans. When they were engaged in this festival, as its periodical solemnization was well known, a band of robbers, enraged at the loss of some booty, lay in wait for them, and took Remus prisoner, Romulus having vigorously ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... have anticipated, that she could not lead a young man who was in love with her to such a place without this result. Her purpose in so doing was best known to herself. In his mind there was evidently a doubt whether it was wanton cruelty, or a desire for information concerning her protege. He began to wonder, in view of the persistence of her interest in Emmet, whether she had not divined the cause of his ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... times, and so sweetly environed with those delicious streams and venerable woods, as in the judgment of Strangers as well as Englishmen it may be compared to one of the most tempting and pleasant Seats in the Nation, and most tempting for a great person and a wanton purse to render it conspicuous. It has rising grounds, meadows, woods, and water in abundance. The distance from London (is) little more than 20 miles, and yet (it is) so securely placed as if it were 100; three miles from Dorking, which serves it abundantly ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... of fashion, against the French nation is illiberal, in the highest degree; nay, it is more, it is a national disgrace.—When I recollect with what ease and uninterruption I have passed through so many great and little towns, and extensive provinces, without a symptom of wanton rudeness being offered me, I blush to think how a Frenchman, if he made no better figure than I did, would have been treated in a tour through Britain.—My Monkey, with a pair of French jack boots, and his hair en queue, ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... but in other respects essentially the language of the historical personages who are made to speak. The diction belongs in each case to the period of the ballad in which it is employed, and yet there is no wanton use of archaisms, or any disposition manifested to resort to meretricious artifices by which to impart an appearance of probability to the story other than that which comes legitimately of sheer narrative excellence. The characterisation is that of history with the features softened ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... ground" hill farmer, together, have destroyed many thousands of our beautiful Kentucky forest acres. Much of this one time "nature lover's paradise" is now ugly, barren, and eroded, and too poor to give a living to either man or beast. Wanton destruction of God-given treasure and beauty is a sin and a shame. Thanks to the men of vision and foresight of the U.S.D.A., state agricultural colleges, and our own fraternity of nut tree lovers, this slaughter ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... as the previous day; high rafters, huge and jagged; and we pickaxed the way continuously. By noontime, we found ourselves alongside of a lead covered by a film of young ice. We forced the dogs and they took it on the run, the ice undulating beneath them, the same as it does when little wanton boys play at tickley benders, often with serious results, on the newly formed ice on ponds and brooks down in civilization. Our tickley benders were not done in the spirit of play, but on account of urgent necessity, and as it was I nearly ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... well that there were brutal young men to whom his contorted-visage would be an incitement to contempt and outrage, and that if racked with rheumatism, he would only be an incumbrance. There was nothing for it but to put Kit Smallbones at the head of the party. His imposing presence would keep off wanton insults, but on the other hand, he had not the moral weight of authority possessed by Tibble, and though far from being a drunkard, he was not proof against a carouse, especially when out of reach of his Bet and of his master, and he was not by any ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... all my life intended, —writing a comedy. Your goodness, your kindness, your regard for my fame, I know have caused both your trepidation, which doomed me to certain failure, and your displeasure that I ran, what you thought, a wanton risk. But it is not wanton, my dearest father. My imagination is not at my own control, or I would always have continued in the walk YOU approved. The combinations for another long work did not occur to me; incidents and effects for a drama did. I 'thought the field more than ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Perhaps the only time before when Thebes had been stormed after a long siege was when it first fell under the Persians; and the ruin which marked the footsteps of Cambyses had never been wholly repaired. But the wanton cruelty of the foreigners did little mischief, when compared with the unpitying and unforgiving distrust of the native conquerors. The temples of Tentyra, Apollinopolis, Latopolis, and Philae show that the massive Egyptian buildings, when let alone, can withstand the wear ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the lack of opposition the mob grew more cheerful. The lion played. They pressed forward, wanton and jeering, firing now and then at random, breaking windows as they passed, looting small shops which they stripped like locusts. Their pockets bulging, and the taste of pillage forecasting what was ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... concerning the lauded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and, more's the pity, the fashions of time, only that which is good and true, will endure like a rock, and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might toward the goal which can never be attained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which a gracious Creator has endowed him, ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... still face, he checked himself, and just in time. Shaken by passion as he was, he was yet enough himself to understand that she would not listen to him. Why should he play the spendthrift and the wanton with his love? Why give her, for nothing, the sterile satisfaction of rejecting him, for her to prize, as he knew girls did, as merely one more notch ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled, The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places, The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces, All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord Were struck and broken by the wanton sword ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Writ as 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?' And what can I say to that but Amen? Jack is always loving and tender, but he can (I well perceive) see little comfort herein himself; and to do so much as name the thing to Thekla were wanton cruelty, though I do fancy she should be the best comforter. So I must wait on, and cry unto God. It may be that is the very thing ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... All others by thy self; because of old Thou thy self doat'st on womankind, admiring Thir shape, thir colour, and attractive grace, None are, thou think'st, but taken with such toys. Before the Flood thou with thy lusty Crew, False titl'd Sons of God, roaming the Earth Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men, 180 And coupl'd with them, and begot a race. Have we not seen, or by relation heard, In Courts and Regal Chambers how thou lurk'st, In Wood or Grove by mossie Fountain side, In Valley or Green Meadow to way-lay Some beauty ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... lady bright! can it be right— This window open to the night? The wanton airs, from the tree-top, Laughingly through the lattice drop— The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully—so fearfully— Above the closed and fringed lid 'Neath which thy slumb'ring ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... wholesome, when nature has perfected her work, and prepared it for human sustenance. To anticipate her seasons, or to prolong them, is a misapplication of labour, and a perversion of the bounties of providence into secret poisons, to indulge the wanton cravings of a depraved appetite. The properties of animal food in general seem not to restrict the use of it to any particular season, but rather to admit its common use at all times. The only period in which it is less ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... from the coppice stray'd; The cony from its hole disporting leapt; The cattle in the bloomy meadows lay Ruminant; the shy foal scarcely swerved aside At our approach from under the tall tree Of his delight, shaking his forelocks long In wanton play; while, overhead, his hymn, As 'twere to herald the approach of night, With all her gathering stars, the blackbird sang Melodiously, mellifluously, and Earth Look'd up, reflecting back the smiles of Heaven! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... sits down to continue her narrative. I am convinced that nothing would more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity, or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just description of the condition into which the wanton plunges herself; and therefore hope that my letter may be a sufficient antidote to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... execute the sculptures, which still stand a monument of the piety of the old citizen, whose house (known by the figure of an armed knight at its angle) is still familiarly called "Pilate's House." Time has written strange alterations on these old works, and wanton injury has also been done to them, but there still remains enough to show the ability of their ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... war against Egypt. The monarch who had deceived his father was dead, and there had never been any cause of complaint against his son or against the Egyptian people. Psammenitus, therefore, regarded the invasion of Egypt by Cambyses as a wanton and wholly unjustifiable aggression, and he determined, in his own mind, that such invaders deserved no mercy, and that he would show them none. Soon after this, a galley on the river, belonging to Cambyses, containing a crew of two hundred men, fell into his hands. The ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... brooding jealousy have driven to bewail his fate among these wilds and complain of the hard heart of that fair and ungrateful one, the end and limit of all human beauty! Oh, ye wood nymphs and dryads, that dwell in the thickets of the forest, so may the nimble wanton satyrs by whom ye are vainly wooed never disturb your sweet repose, help me to lament my hard fate or at least weary not at listening to it! Oh, Dulcinea del Toboso, day of my night, glory of my pain, guide of my path, star of my fortune, so may Heaven grant thee in full ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... nearer ruin than his room. Great green stains were on the walls; plaster was lying here and there in a heap; the floors, rotted everywhere with damp, were sinking in all directions. Yet there had been no wanton destruction, for the glass in the windows was little broken. Merest neglect is all that is required to make of both man and his works a heap; for will is at the root of well-being, and nature speedily resumes what the will of man does ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur. When she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... eyes of the savages watching their approach; and before they could decide whether to advance or retreat, a shower of arrows was discharged, several of which took effect, though not mortally. This wanton aggression roused the spirit of the sturdy Englishmen, and regardless of the efforts which Captain Standish made to restrain them, a volley of musket balls instantly replied to the challenge of the red men; and the wild cries that arose from the cemetery plainly told that they had not sped in vain. ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Bower Thomas Campion To Lesbia Thomas Campion "Love me or Not" Thomas Campion "There is None, O None but You" Thomas Campion Of Corinna's Singing Thomas Campion "Were my Heart as some Men's are" Thomas Campion "Kind are her Answers" Thomas Campion To Celia Ben Jonson Song, "O, do not wanton with those eyes" Ben Jonson Song, "Go and catch a falling star" John Donne The Message John Donne Song, "Ladies, though to your conquering eyes" George Etherege To a Lady Asking Him how Long He would Love Her" George Etherege ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... ladies, and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank in their dress, all being in a state of Nature; that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. I am here convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed." (Letters and Works, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... fall, shamelesse, wanton, subtyle, paynted Femme impudicque, lubricque, affrontee, mignarde, ...
— An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly • Anonymous
... voyage of Gonzales da Cintra, likewise a gentleman in the household of Don Henry, in some measure expiated the wanton outrage which had been committed in that of Lancerot. The merit of Gonzales had raised him to the rank of a gentleman in the household of Don Henry, and his character was held in much estimation; but his confidence was obtained and betrayed by a moor of the Assanhaji tribe[10], ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... vices and tame slavery, will stare at these accounts. Pray be acquainted with your own country, while it is in its lustre. In a regular monarchy the folly of the Prince gives the tone; in a downright tyranny, folly dares give itself no airs; it is in a wanton overgrown commonwealth that whim and debauchery intrigue best together. Ask me which of these governments I prefer—oh! the last—only I fear it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... never before come into Bailey's life. He had read of somewhat similar cases in the papers, and had passed harsh judgment on the man and woman. He had called the woman wanton and the man a villain, but here the verdict was less easy to render. He liked Mrs. Burke, and he loved his friend. He had looked into their faces many times during the last six months without detecting any signs of degradation; on the contrary, Blanche had apparently ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... said he, 'this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, what's your name! Your father has absconded - deserted you - and you mustn't expect to see him again as ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... present conditions represented only the consequence of ancient faults. Any human being also, by reason of like faults, might hereafter be reduced to the same dumb state,—might be reborn as a reptile, a fish, a bird, or a beast of burden. The consequence of wanton cruelty to any animal might cause the perpetrator of that cruelty to be reborn as an animal of the same kind, destined to suffer the same cruel treatment. Who could even be sure that the goaded ox, ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... writer, I am afraid that the little Section XV." [i.e. the reply to Mr. Martineau in 1st edition of the "Defence"] "must have offended the amour propre more deeply than it ought to have done, considering the wanton and outrageous assault to which it was a very lenient reply, and that the critic affords another illustration of the old maxim, that there are none so implacable as those who have ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... welcome them by diversions of different kinds. I found a great crowd surrounding a party who were dancing, by the light of some large fires, to the music of four drums, which were beat with great exactness and uniformity. The dances, however, consisted more in wanton gestures than in muscular exertion or graceful attitudes. The ladies vied with each other in displaying the most voluptuous ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... So strong a plea does beauty make That, where 'tis seen, discretion's there. If, by a monstrous chance, we learn That this illustrious vaunt's a lie, Our minds, by which the eyes discern, See hideous contrariety. And laugh at Nature's wanton mood, Which, thus a swinish thing to flout, Though haply in its gross way good, Hangs such a jewel in ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... "expect tough work from such an enemy, who is frequently both wanton and wild. But I congratulate you heartily on the event of this day's contest. Let us now pack up and pay for our treasures. Your servant has just entered the room, and the chaise is ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... seat of a pirate empire. Putting out in their long, light vessels, they swept the seas and raided many a populous city on the Mediterranean coast. So terrible were their inroads that the word "vandalism" has come to mean the wanton destruction of property. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... had already undergone a revulsion of feeling. The assault of the old woman on two harmless strangers seemed too wanton to be tolerated. Ludlow's easy manner and calm language restored them fully to their senses, and the sight of his revolver effectually overawed the more excitable or reckless. They were also jealous of the good name of the town, and now began to be enraged with the ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... American people. Every possible kindness compatible with the necessity of removal must therefore be shown by the troops; and if in the ranks a despicable individual should be found capable of inflicting a wanton injury or insult on any Cherokee man, woman, or child, it is hereby made the special duty of the nearest good officer or man instantly to interpose, and to seize and consign the guilty wretch to the severest penalty of the laws. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... the divine in human life. I find in all that has yet come before me, almost the same that echoes through the Edda, and that appears in Homer as popular belief; the godhead interferes in human affairs, when crime becomes too wanton, and thus evil is overcome and the good gains more and more the upper hand. Of course that is kept in the background, when despair in realities becomes the keynote of the God-Consciousness, as with the Brahmans, and then with the much-praised apostles of annihilation, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... I'VE been the brain that lit thy dull concavity! The human race Invest MY face With thine expression of unchecked depravity, Invested with a ghastly reciprocity, I'VE been responsible for thy monstrosity, I, for thy wanton, blundering ferocity ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... ejaculated Vernon savagely. He was violently excited. Perspiration was pouring off his face at the thought of the almost unparalleled act of wanton treachery that was about to be enacted. "If we could ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... the lady, belike a lady wanton, 'Just for courtesy, lend me, dear Catullus, 25 Those same nobodies. I the great Sarapis Go to visit awhile.' ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... the Hsia seasons, drive in the chariot of Yin, wear the head-dress of Chou, take for music the Shao and its dance. Banish the strains of Cheng and flee men that are glib; for the strains of Cheng are wanton and glib speakers ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... made—and like a living grave. Below the surface of the lake[12] The dark vault lies wherein we lay: We heard it ripple night and day; Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; And I have felt the winter's spray Wash through the bars when winds were high 120 And wanton in the happy sky; And then the very rock hath rocked, And I have felt it shake, unshocked,[13] Because I could have smiled to see The death that ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... siren of the stage, Charmer of an idle age, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire; Bane of every manly art, Sweet enfeebler of the heart; Oh! too pleasing is thy strain. Hence to southern climes again, Tuneful mischief, vocal spell; To this island bid farewell: Leave us as we ought to be— Leave the ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... treading barefoot on the embers; the circle of grunting figures, leaning forward, hatchet and musket in hand, moving slowly around the fire with a shuffling, hopping step; the outer circle of sitting or lying figures, men, women, and children, drunken, wanton, quarrelsome, dreaming of the blood that should be let before the sun had gone; and at one side the little group of old men, beating their drums of wood and skin with ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... upon the lea, And sparkles o'er the murmuring sea, The wanton wind sighs, Come! come! come! Oh, haste, Love, come with me, To the wild wood come with me— Come and gather luscious berries, Come with me; Clustering grapes and melting cherries Wait ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the mild enjoyments of peace—all the pleasing delights of uninterrupted harmony—and all the diffusive blessings of profound tranquility. Boundless must be the punishment, which irritated providence will inflict on those whose wanton cruelty has prompted them to destroy this fair arrangement of nature—this flowery prospect of human felicity. Engulphed in the dark abyss of never ending misery, they shall in bitterness atone for the stab thus given to human nature; and in anguish unutterable ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... sparkles like a jewel on the borders of the Seine as gloriously as ever Babylon sparkled on the shores of Euphrates. As godless, as hollow to the very core of rottenness, as her sister of ancient days, wanton "Lutetia" shines,—with the ghastly and unnatural lustre of phosphorescent luminance arising from old graves—and as divinely determined as the destruction of the old-time city splendid, is the approaching downfall ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... insincerity, of which the politics of that period in America had offered many examples. It may seem incredible, but it contained no word of slavery, but recited in dignified terms how the South had been driven to separation by "wanton aggression on the part of others," and after it had "vainly endeavoured to secure tranquillity." The new Southern Congress now resolved to take over the forts and other property in the seceded States that had belonged to the Union, ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... they spread more freely to the sun, Those tendrils; while they wanton in the breeze Gathering all heaven's bounties, henceforth one Abides more honoured than the ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... lake shone blue and smooth as a mirror, reflecting in its shining surface the white landing-stage and its boat, the swans and the statues. The fruit was already plucked in the garden and the leaves were falling. What a foolish wanton waste this stripping of ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... skeletons, I examined their shrine; and was rather surprised to find it not only enriched with barbaric gold and pearl, but covered with cameos and intaglios of the best antique sculpture. Many an impious emperor and gross Silenus, many a wanton nymph and frantic bacchanal, figure in the same range with the statues of saints and evangelists. How St. Helena could tolerate such a mixed assembly (for the shrine was formed under her auspices) ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... the next morning that, when I came into his room to ask his blessing as was my wont, he received me with fierce and angry words. 'Why had I,' so he asked, 'been delighting myself in such wanton mischief—dancing over the tender plants in the flower-beds, all set with the famous Dutch bulbs he had brought from Holland?' I had never been out of doors that morning, sir, and I could not conceive what he meant, and so I said; and then he swore at me for a liar, and said I was of no true blood, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... you spend the hours of night? God's faith, but you are young to be so wanton!" she cried in a sharp voice. "Get you from my sight and out of my kingdom as fast as horse and ship may carry you—as feet may bear you." Leicester's face lighted to hear. "Your high Majesty," pleaded the girl, dropping on her knees, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... army in which every man has fought. Most of them have been in hand-to-hand conflict with the Germans. They have approached the front through a country which the enemy has devastated. There is no village which does not bear the mark of wanton destruction. I have seen these things for myself. Houses have been burned, others pillaged and the contents dragged into the streets and there smashed. Churches have been invariably ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... refuse to see him again," said Grace, dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "But I am not incensed against you as you are against me," she added, abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular. "Before I came I had been despising you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across the country at midnight, and risking his life, and getting ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... of duty err, (A pattern of fidelity by day; By night a murderer, lurking for his prey); And round the pastures or the fold will creep, And, coward-like, attack the peaceful sheep: Alone the wanton mischief he pursues, Alone in reeking blood his jaws imbrues; Chasing amain his fright'ned victims round, Till death in wild confusion strews the ground; Then wearied out, to kennel sneaks away, And licks his guilty paws till ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... and cramped his soul beyond endurance. When he came of an age to play marbles, he was forbidden to play, because it was, to Miss Hester's mind, a species of gambling. Swimming was too dangerous to be for a moment considered. Fishing, without necessity, was wanton cruelty. Flying kites was foolishness and ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... senses, he was hurried suddenly away and carried to a room, where the invisible power sustaining him appeared in human shape, "like a youth whose beard is but just growing, with a face most marvellous, fair, but of austere and far from wanton beauty." In that room were all the men who had ever lived and died on earth; and thence they two went together, and came into a narrow street, one side whereof was bright with sunlight. Then Cellini asked the angel how he might behold the sun; and the angel pointed to certain steps upon ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... "Now, sweet wanton, toss them high; Race about, you know not why. Now stand still, from sheer excess Of exhaustless happiness. I, meanwhile, on this old gate, Sit sagely calm, and perhaps relate Lore of fairies. Do you know How they make the mushrooms ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... of Indianapolis, quoted Mr. Storey's articles, and said, with great regret, that it was only too true of Indianapolis also, judging by the wanton manners of troops of the girls ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... for the common people—which is not always credited to her—and for democracy. These qualities were quickened during her experience at Versailles, for while there for a few days' visit she saw the pitiless social world in all its orgies, revelries of luxury, and wanton extravagances. There, also, she contracted that deep-seated hatred ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... English writers, we should infer that England has a vested right to pound and pulverize all places that refuse to acknowledge her supremacy but that such conduct as distinguished her troops at Copenhagen and elsewhere is wanton butchery when imitated by the military of other nations. Be that as it may, it is a fact that the British batteries pounded the Havana savagely on the 11th of August, one hundred and one years ago, without causing any alarm to either Lord Albemarle or his army as to the opinion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... handle, however unfair, of retorting upon them that custom of the Church." Had a member of the Anglican Church thus spoken of the Fathers, and thus pleaded in their name guilty of subterfuge and duplicity, he would have been immediately charged with irreverence and wanton insult, and that with good reason. These sentiments of the Cardinal are in p. 982 of the ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... mist. While he was staring about him in bewilderment, Mrs. Croix came running in from her bedroom. Her hair was down and tangled, her dressing sacque half off, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling. She looked half wanton, half like a giddy girl darting about among her ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... no jest to hear young girls talk bawdry. But plots and parties give new matters birth, And state distractions serve you here for mirth. At England's cost poets now purchase fame; While factious heats destroy us, without shame, These wanton Neroes fiddle to the flame; The stage, like old rump-pulpits, is become The scene of news, a furious party's drum: Here poets beat their brains for volunteers, And take fast hold of asses by their ears; Their jingling rhimes for reason here you swallow, Like Orpheus' music, it makes beasts to ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... upon the wife's belief of an absolute unconditional fidelity to the husband;' by which bold assertion he strikes at the root, digs the foundation, and removes the basis upon which the happiness of a married state is built. As for his personal reflections, I would gladly know who are those 'wanton wives' he speaks of? who are those ladies of high stations that he so boldly traduces in his sermon? It is pretty plain who these aspersions are aimed at, for which he deserves the ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... and vanishes at once when the longing is stilled, to be replaced by fresh wants, that is, by new pains. In view of the indescribable misery in the world, to favor optimism is evidence not so much of folly and blindness as of a wanton disposition. The old saying is true: Non-existence is better than existence. The misery, however, is the just punishment for the original sin of the individual, which gave itself its particular existence by an act of intelligible freedom. Redemption from the sin and misery of existence is possible ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... An extravagant fancy sought expression in the excitement, of grotesque actions and brilliant costumes. The Morris dancers executed their curious movements, clad in "gilt leather and silver paper, and sometimes in coats of white spangled fustian,"[46] or in "greene, yellow, or some other light wanton collour," bedecked with "scarfs, ribbons and laces hanged all over with golde ringes, precious stones and other jewells," and "aboute either legge twentie or fourtie belles."[47] Robin Hood's Day, Christmas, Twelfth Night, Harvest Home, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... the use of that weapon the sling, wantonly slew two young men, and boasted of the bloody deed to his two wives, Adah and Zillah, blasphemously maintaining that as Cain for one murder should be avenged sevenfold, so he, for his wanton act, would be avenged seventy and seven fold upon whoever should slay him. It may be considered strange that the name of Lamech should be Celtic, and that it should signify a slinger; but I am strengthened in my opinion by reference to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... where dawn was a glittering carpet, rolled From sky to shore on level and endless seas, Hardly their eyes discerned in a dazzle of gold That here in fifties, yonder in twos and threes, The ships they sought, like a swarm of drowning bees By a wanton gust on the pool of a mill-dam hurled, Floated forsaken of life-giving tide and breeze, Their oars broken, their sails for ever furled, For ever deserted the bulwarks that guarded ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... solemnity and silence of the preceding minutes, we nearly jumped out of our skins, and when our injured hearing had sufficiently recovered so that we could distinguish the sound of our own voices, we demanded an explanation of this apparently childish and wanton outrage. ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... completion of my argument, that I have to recall the angry and violent speeches which followed the announcement of the new policy; the dogmatic prognostications of Imperial disruption, of financial collapse, and of a cruel Boer tyranny in the emancipated Colonies; the charges of wanton betrayal of loyalists, of disgraceful surrender to "the enemy." Some of the leading actors in these scenes, notably Mr. Balfour and Mr. Lyttelton, have since acknowledged that they were wrong, while apparently feeling it their duty as honourable and loyal ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... 'the father intended to disinherit him.' Why? 'I cannot say.' Did he disinherit him? 'No, he did not.' Who stopped him? 'Well, he was thinking of it.' To whom did he say so? 'To no one.' Surely," cries Cicero, "this is to abuse the laws and justice and your dignity in the basest and most wanton way, to make charges which he not only cannot but does not even ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... swell of its lines, the classic purity of its style—Dartmouth felt as if an organ were pealing within his soul, lifting the song on its notes to the celestial choir which had sent it forth. Heavenly fingers were sweeping the keys, heavenly voices were quiring the melody they had with wanton hand flung into a mortal's brain. As Harold read on he felt that his spirit had dissolved and was flowing through the poem, to be blended, unified with it forever. He seemed to lose all physical sensation, not from the causes of the previous night, but from the spiritual exaltation and absorption ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... and cruisers which had survived the battle of Dover, had proceeded to Portsmouth, destroyed the booms and submarine defences, while a detachment of aerostats shelled the land defences, and then in a moment of wanton revenge had blown up the venerable hulk of the Victory, which had gone down at her moorings with her flag still flying as it had done a hundred years before at the fight of Trafalgar. After this inglorious achievement they had been laid up in dock to wait for their next opportunity ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... mastery that hath it. "Tho a man do strive for the mastery," saith Paul, "yet he is not crowned, unless he strive lawfully"; that is, unless he so run, and so strive, as to have God's approbation. What, do you think that every heavy-heeled professor will have heaven? What, every lazy one? every wanton and foolish professor, that will be stopt by anything, kept back by anything, that scarce runneth so fast heavenward as a snail creepeth on the ground? Nay, there are some professors that do not go on so fast ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... think that Bob Bangs was influenced by sheer spite and cruelty of heart, or by a wanton delight in witnessing and contributing to the suffering of others; yet so one was often forced to believe. It is bad enough when one fellow stands by and, without lifting a finger to help, lets another suffer; but when, instead of that, he actually makes himself the instrument of torture, ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... regulated wholly with an idea to the gratification of man's sensuous desires, religious temples, under the supervision of the priesthood, became brothels, in which were openly practiced as part and parcel of religious rites and ceremonies the most wanton profligacy and the most shameless self-abandonment. The worship of Aphrodite or Venus, and also that of Bacchus, originally consisted in homage paid to the reproductive principles contained in the earth, water, and sun, but, ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... wall around these fine ruins for their protection from wanton destruction. It takes proof of the kind afforded by these ruins to convince this unbelieving generation that the ancient Irish were skilled carvers on stone, and architects of no mean order. I have looked into some of what has been said as to the uses for which the round towers ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... inflamed than composed." Appius Claudius, who was naturally severe, and, by the hatred of the commons on the one hand, and praises of the senators on the other, was become quite infuriated, said, "That these riots proceeded not from distress, but from licentiousness. That the people were rather wanton than violent. That this terrible mischief took its rise from the right of appeal; since threats, not authority, was all that belonged to the consuls, while permission was given to appeal to those who were accomplices in the crime. Come," added he, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... of the war party only and at that period no other mutilation was practiced. It was a small lock not more than three inches square, which was carried only during the thirty days' celebration of a victory, and afterward given religious burial. Wanton cruelties and the more barbarous customs of war were greatly intensified with the coming of the white man, who brought with him fiery liquor and deadly weapons, aroused the Indian's worst passions, provoking in him revenge and ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... for granted that the author is a merry fellow, who troubles himself little about the cries, tears and tricks of the lady you call glory, fashion, or public favour, for he knows her to be a wanton who would put up with any violence. He knows that in France her war-cry is Mount Joy! A fine cry indeed, but one which certain writers have disfigured, and which signifies, "Joy it is not of the earth, it is there; seize it, otherwise good-bye." ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... dealt with the occasional outbreaks in the college was very interesting. If it was a case of wanton defiance of the habitual order, there was a very slight probability of its being overlooked. A favorite prank of the stealing of the college bell was invariably punished, first by having a hand-bell rung a little earlier than regulation hours all through ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... crasser manifestations—this utilitarian philosophy has widely destructive effects nowadays. Strip mines gouged out without thought of restoration, wanton land speculation and development, the casual dumping of raw wastes into streams by towns or industries and a number of other harmful practices mentioned in this report are all clearly based in a conviction that what one does to the world around ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... think again of Captain Black, or ask myself—Is the man really dead, or shall we yet hear of him, bringing terror upon the sea, and death and suffering; the master of the nations, and the child of a wanton ambition? Or is his grave in the great Atlantic that he ruled in the mighty moments of his power? Ah, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Roberts. You may judge by our presence here to whose hand and to whose skill we have felt forced to ascribe this wanton shooting of a young and lovely girl. We wish to be undeceived, and stand ready to listen to anything you may have to say in contradiction of these conclusions. That is, if you wish to speak. You know that you will be well within your rights to remain silent. Likewise ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... spent on it; she wore her oldest dresses, and would have had him go shabby in token of their adversity. Her economies were frantic child's play,—methodless, inexperienced, fitful; and they were apt to be followed by remorse in which she abetted him in some wanton excess. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... were writing not of calculable considerations, but of other and stronger forces, I should add that to withdraw from Belgium, where so many women and children have been massacred, so many jewels of the past befouled or destroyed, so wanton an attack upon Christ and His Church delivered, would be a loss of Pagan prestige intolerably strong, and a triumph of all that against which Prussia set out ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... the smallest impression on the vast multitude contained in one of these flocks,—computed by Wilson to consist of more than twenty-two hundred millions,—yet to Booth the destruction seemed wasteful, wanton, and from his point of view was a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... Mr. Carvel," returned the Governor, who was something of a wit; "necessity often makes us fools, if we be not careful. But give me ever a wanton fool rather than him of necessity's handiwork. And as for the lad," says he, "let him not trouble you. Such as he, if twisted a little in the growth, come out ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... intelligently, the duties of the soldier; that his provocation had been so great as a slave, that when once armed, and conscious of his power as a soldier, he would abuse it by acts of revenge and wanton cruelty. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... kinds of experiments on living animals by uninstructed students. Against this notion we were first to protest, as being at once cruel and worse than useless; for an experiment performed by bungling fingers is no experiment at all, but wanton cruelty." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... savage denunciation of the vices of womankind. The various types of female degradation are revealed to our gaze with merciless and often revolting portrayal. The unchastity of woman is the main theme, but ranked with the adulteress and the wanton are the murderess of husband or of child, the torturer of the slave, the client of the fortune-teller or the astrologer, and even the more harmless female athlete and blue-stocking. For vigour and skill the satire ranks among Juvenal's best, but it is marred by wanton grossness ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... showed their groundlessness. When he had discussed the existing aspect of slavery in Trinidad, Jamaica and other places, he proceeded to deal with the general question. He confessed with shame and pain that cases of wanton cruelty had occurred in the colonies, but added that they would always exist, particularly under the system of slavery; and this was unquestionably a substantial reason why the British Legislature and public should set themselves in good earnest to provide for its extinction; but he maintained ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... them as a rural swain. With features all so sweet in harmony, You might have feigned they breathed a music mild, With lire so peachy, fit to charm the eye, And lips right sure to conquer when they smiled, All seen through locks of lustrous auburn hair, Which wanton fairies had so gaily thrown To cover o'er a face so wondrous fair, Lest Dian might ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... conviction in the minds of men the world over, is shown by a recent incident in war-stricken Europe. It was only a few months ago and during the terrible campaign in Eastern Poland, even while shells were bursting and men were dying, that the Central Powers stopt, as it were, in the mad rush of wanton destruction, to re-establish and reorganize the old University of Warsaw. More than that, they added to the old institution two new faculties, or colleges, as we ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... great trout, who frequent the old brickwork and timber foundations. The water in its rush through the arches, had of course worked for itself a deep hole, and then, some twenty yards below, spread itself out in wanton joyous ripples and eddies over a broad surface some fifty yards across, and dashed away towards a little island some two hundred yards below, or rolled itself slowly back towards the bridge again, up the backwater by the ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... abounded in the open patches of forest ground. In crossing a plain we observed, under the shade of a patch of narrow-leaved tea trees, four bowers of the bowerbird, close together, as if one habitation was not sufficient for the wanton bird to sport in; and on the dry swamps I mentioned above, small companies of native companions were walking around us at some distance, but rose with their sonorous cu-r-r-r-ring cry, whenever Brown tried to approach them. [The natives of Argyle call the cry of the native companion, Ku-ru-duc Ku-ru-duc; ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... Southern iniquities that he marked it B plus, the highest rating his responsibility had allowed Rosemary Roselle. Now he was certain that her very name held a dangerous potentiality—it came too easily to the tongue; it had a wanton sound like ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... well-worn, nay, almost threadbare black coat of the "minister," as much denoting him to be a man of peace, as the fatigue-jacket into "batteries"; to all of which innovations, bad as they may be, and useless and uncalled for, and wanton as they are, we are much more willing to submit, than to the new-fangled and lubberly abomination of saying "ON a steamboat," or "ON ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... The "wanton, ragged garments of the Muse," which you abandon with strict generosity, make a show and please almost everywhere. Her sensual charm is not unknown to me; yet I think I may say that it was given me to lay hold of a higher and ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... O wanton one, O wicked one, how was it that you came, Down from the paths of purity, to walk the streets of shame? And wherefore was that precious wealth, God gave to you in trust, Flung broadcast for the feet of men ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... hym for hys laboure. Iwarant you they know their yong, growynge nothynge out of kynde, when theyr owne lyfe is nothynge else then an example of naughtynes. Beynge an infant, he learneth the vnchaste flatterynge wordes of nurses, and as we saye, he is fashioned wyth the hand to wanton touchynge. He seeth hys father well whetteled wyth drynke, and heareath hym bablynge oute that, that shulde be kepte in. He sytteth at greate, and not very honest feastes, he heareth the house ful of iesters, harpes, mynstrels and daunsers. To these maners ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus
... will. In nets' default, Finch-like me seem'd thou might'st be ta'en with salt; And here—and how thou mad'st me start!— Thou art.' 'O Mortal, by Immortals' cunning led, Who shew'd you how for Gods to bait your bed? Ah, Psyche, guess'd you nought I craved but to be caught? Wanton, it was not you, But I that did so passionately sue; And for your beauty, not unscath'd, I fought With Hades, ere I own'd in you a thought!' 'O, heavenly Lover true, Is this thy mouth upon my forehead press'd? Are these thine arms about my bosom link'd? Are these ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... dinna gie a proper sorting to yon twa silly jauds that gard me mak a bogle of you, and a fule of mysell—Ghaists! my certie, I sall ghaist them—If they had their heads as muckle on their wark as on their daffing, they wad play nae sic pliskies—it's the wanton steed that scaurs at the windle-strae—Ghaists! wha e'er heard of ghaists in an honest house? Naebody need fear bogles that has a conscience void of offence.—But I am blithe that MacTurk hasna murdered ye when a' is done, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... become aware that they were in the presence of an armed vessel of the enemy, and the lives of non-combatants, passengers and crew, have been sacrificed wholesale, in a manner which the Government of the United States cannot but regard as wanton and without the slightest color of justification. No limit of any kind has in fact been set to the indiscriminate pursuit and destruction of merchantmen of all kinds and nationalities within the waters, constantly extending in area, where these operations have been carried on; and ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... want to eat. To be sure, they gave themselves a wide range; they were willing to eat almost anything that they could shoot, even blackbirds, which were so abundant and so easy to shoot. But there were some things which they would have thought it not only wanton but wicked to kill, like turtle-doves, which they somehow believed were sacred, nor robins either, because robins were hallowed by poetry, and they kept about the house, and were almost tame, so that it seemed a shame to shoot ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... in the reports from Cuba. And yet every thinking man among us, young and old, turned cold with apprehension when we were threatened with a European interference which would have dishonoured us. That Spain is behaving with wanton brutality would not be to the point, even if the reports were not exaggerated, which they are,—for the matter of that, the Cubans are equally brutal when they find the opportunity. The point is that it is none of our business. The Cubans have rebelled. They must take the ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... studying to please me, found me every day some new diversion: In all which also his wife Doris, a fine woman, strove to exceed him, and that so gayly, that she presently thrust Tryphoena from my heart: I gave her the wink, and she return'd her consent by as wanton a twinckle; so that this dumb rhetorick going before the tongue, ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... close-girt in silver sheen, The Goddess of the woods, the Maiden-queen. Cold terror seized me, and mute awe, the while She oped her proud lips, with an icy smile— 'Whose votary art thou? Shall I resign 'To wanton Cypris this sworn nymph of mine? 'Have I enfeoffed thee of my holiest glen? 'To have thee tainted by the lips of men? 'Shall urchin Eros laugh at my decree? 'No Hymen torch, no loosened zone for thee I 'To-morrow, ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... an infant stands, And draws imagined houses on the sands, The sportive wanton, pleased with some new play, Sweeps the slight works and fancied domes away: Thus vanish at thy touch the tow'rs and walls, The toil of mornings in ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... with perfect probability, but whether with complete historical accuracy or not I do not know, represents this useless exposure as wanton ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... and all human learning should speak with unmistakable accents for the elevation, evangelization, and liberation of the oppressed. In a future day, the historian cannot purge our political history from the shame of wanton and mercenary oppression. But there is not, I believe, a book in the literature of our country that will be alive and known a hundred years hence, in which can be found the taint of despotism. The literature of the world is on the side ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... covered and overflowed all England, few books were read in our tongue saving certain books of chivalry, as they said, for pastime and pleasure, which, as some say, were made in monasteries by idle monks or wanton canons: as one, for example, Morte Arthure, the whole pleasure of which book standeth in two special points, in open manslaughter and bold bawdry. This is good stuff for wise men to laugh at or honest men to take pleasure at. Yet I know when ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... Cockneydom invasion threat? Then let the louns beware, Sir! Scotland, they'll find, is Scotland yet, And for hersel' can fare, Sir. The Thames shall run to join the Tweed, Criffel adorn Thames valley, 'Ere wanton wrath and vulgar greed On Scottish ground shall rally. ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... found by him that Mr Burke foresaw the total ruin of the West-India colonies, if the trade were at once prohibited. He is for a better regulation of the ships which carry on that infamous commerce: he would lay the captains under restrictions, and punish them with rigour for wanton severity or brutal inhumanity to the slaves; and, when the poor creatures are purchased at the West-India islands, he would have them instructed in religion; and be permitted to purchase their own freedom, when by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... and large hogs were still roasted whole at senatorial banquets, and wines were still drunk which had been stored one hundred years. The "dark-skinned daughters of Isis" still sported unmolested in wanton mien with the priests of Cybele in their discordant cries. The streets still were filled with the worshippers of Bacchus and Venus, with barbaric captives and their Teuton priests, with chariots and horses, with richly apparelled young men, and fashionable ladies ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... describe the horror. The day had been sultry, and the heat was extreme throughout the ship. The unusual number of hours during which we had been crowded together between decks; the foul atmosphere and sickening heat; the additional excitement and restlessness caused by the unwonted wanton attack which had been made; above all, the want of water, not a drop of which could be obtained during the whole night, to cool our parched lips; the imprecations of those who were half distracted with their burning thirst; the shrieks and wails of the wounded; the ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... accomplished,—when the Stars and Stripes at last bring the order and peaceful security they typify, instead of wanton disorder, with all the concomitants of savage warfare over which they now wave,—we shall then be confronted with the necessity of a policy for the future of these distant regions. It is a problem that calls for our soberest, most dispassionate, ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... by Augustus, so far from checking, served to communicate a fresh impulse to the intercourse with India, whence all that was costly and rare was collected in wanton profusion, to minister to the luxury of Rome. A bold discovery of the same period imparted an entirely new character to the navigation of the Indian Ocean. The previous impediment to trade had been the necessity of carrying it on in small vessels, that crept cautiously ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... declared that the character of every part of the country, so far as slavery or freedom was concerned, was now settled, either by law or nature, and that he should resist the insertion of the Wilmot Proviso in regard to New Mexico, because it would be merely a wanton taunt and reproach to the South. He then spoke of the change of feeling and opinion both at the North and the South in regard to slavery, and passed next to the question of mutual grievances. He depicted at length the grievances ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... shores the white boats ride away, Salving the wreckage of the portless ships The light desires of the amorous day, The wayward, wanton wastage ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... looked at him, opened her lips to defy him, and instead gave a small sob. Her Scotch blood chilled at the threat of such wanton destruction of property and money, but it was not that which made her afraid at that moment of Tom Lorrigan,—held her ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... the mention of the wife's whoredom had preceded. Compare, moreover, Zech. v. 5-11, where the thought, that Israel had filled up the measure of their sins, is represented by a woman sitting in an Ephah. Hofmann explains the name Gomer by "end," "utmost ruin:" "By luxury, Israel has become wanton, and hence it must come to an end, to utter ruin." But this interpretation is at variance with the context, from which it must necessarily be derived; for it is not the punishment, but the guilt which ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... single combat. If Harold were killed, the nation might give the crown to whom they thought good; Harold's death could not make William's claim one jot better. The cause was not personal, but national. The Norman duke had, by a wanton invasion, wronged, not the King only, but every man in England, and every man might claim to help in driving him out. Again, in an ordinary wager of battle, the judgement can be enforced; here, whether William ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... and unbending, and he himself combined an almost womanly gentleness with a quiet determination that unflinchingly faced all obstacles. With a high sense of personal honour, unassuming and even-tempered, he was only roused to anger by acts of oppression or wanton cruelty. Then his indignation, though not loud, was very real, and he acted with a promptitude which would hardly have been expected from his usually placid demeanour. A story is told of how one day sitting at table he saw through the window ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... that she should have dared to unbolt the door, or to withdraw the bars. What was she, that she should be trusted to open or to close the house? And there came upon him some idea of wanton and improper conduct. Why was she there at that hour? Must it be that he should put her again from ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... nation so long held prostrate—a giant struggling against fetters of its own forging, blinded and strangling in its own blood—reared its head and cried out for the return of Hope, groping on all sides to gather the divine youth to its arms, when, as a last blow, dealt by a wanton hand, ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... was speaking the thoughts that had been drifting through his mind in whiskey-lit ruminations. That he was a wanton killer she had always heard. If he could persuade himself it could be done with safety, he would not hesitate to make ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... few hours earlier not a ship nor a house could have escaped. But it was the lesson, not the loss, that told. As it was, enough damage had been done to demonstrate—as Paul had declared to the wise man of Paris—that the disasters caused by the wanton fires and assaults on the American coasts, could be easily brought home to the enemy's doors. Though, indeed, if the retaliators were headed by Paul Jones, the satisfaction would not be equal to the insult, being abated ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... read this out some day, got up sprucely with a new toga, all in white, with your birthday ring on at last, perched up on a high seat, after gargling your supple throat by a liquid process of tuning, with a languishing roll of your wanton eye. At this you may see great brawny sons of Rome all in a quiver, losing all decency of gesture and command of voice, as the strains glide into their very bones, and the marrow within is tickled by the ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... very late hour, Tomozo heard the voice of a woman in his master's apartment; and this made him uneasy. He feared that Shinzaburo, being very gentle and affectionate, might be made the dupe of some cunning wanton,—in which event the domestics would be the first to suffer. He therefore resolved to watch; and on the following night he stole on tiptoe to Shinzaburo's dwelling, and looked through a chink in one of the sliding shutters. By the ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... which had been causing severe losses to poultry had at last been killed a local paper admits that the wanton destruction of fowls is still going on. It is thought that another fox of the same name ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... he turned and looked as keenly at her As careful robins eye the delver's toil; And that within her, which a wanton fool, Or hasty judger would have called her guilt, Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall. And Geraint looked ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... aught believe Of elder days), women examples were Of rare virtues: Lucrece disdain'd to live Longer than chaste; and boldly without fear Took sharp revenge on her enforced heart With her own hands: for that it not withstood The wanton will, but yielded to the force Of proud Tarquin, who bought her ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... of the danger, in having to contend with armed men instead of ferocious brutes, and in the higher value of the prizes which they would obtain in case of success. The idea of there being any injustice or wrong in this wanton and unprovoked aggression upon the territories of a neighboring nation seems not to have entered the mind either of the royal robber ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... were no jars and no derangements. Madame, however, pained Zoe extremely with her imprudent acts, her sudden fits of unwisdom, her mad bravado. Still the lady's maid grew gradually lenient, for she had noticed that she made increased profits in seasons of wanton waste when Madame had committed a folly which must be made up for. It was then that the presents began raining on her, and she fished up many a louis out of ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... any post, stone, or other mark made by the surveyors; but we believe there has been no occasion to enforce these clauses, the good sense and good feeling of the people being ample securities against such wanton crime. Such survey was not to affect the rights of owners; yet from it lay an appeal ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers in a ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... the place, Jill running her hand over the hieroglyphics which cover the pillars to their beautiful capitals, until she stopped before a representation of Hathor the wanton, standing naked and verily unashamed before the image of a man, whose name I know not, but whose beauty and nudity are as ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... boke and letter. June 8th, William Aspland of Essex and Th. Collen. June 12th, lent Chronica Hollandi Magna to Mr. Beale on Saterday manuscript, which Mr. Webb lent me. June 14th, Jane Hikman to goodwife Tyndall's to lern. June 27th, Arthur wownded on his hed by his own wanton throwing of a brik-bat upright, and not well avoyding the fall of it agayn, at Mr. Harberts abowt sonn-setting. The half-brik weighed 2 lb. June 30, Madinia was taken ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... of his schoolmaster Socrates (without all question the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to that purpose said that he resembled the Sileni. Sileni of old were little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and other such counterfeited pictures, at pleasure, to excite people unto laughter, as Silenus himself, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... hunger frighten'd, flees: Yet not too long in cold debate remain; Till age refrain not—but if old, refrain. By no such rule would Gaffer Kirk be tried; First in the year he led a blooming bride, And stood a wither'd elder at her side. Oh! Nathan! Nathan! at thy years trepann'd, To take a wanton harlot by the hand! Thou, who wert used so tartly to express Thy sense of matrimonial happiness, Till every youth, whose banns at church were read, Strove not to meet, or meeting, hung his head; And every lass forebore at thee to look, A sly old fish, too ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... you a mad thing just now. A week ago I did think you half-mad—a poor, ill-used creature, a visionary, a moral woman living immorally; yet, in spite of all, a woman to be loved and pitied. But now I'm beginning to think you're only frail—wanton. Oh, you're not so mad as not to know you're wicked! [Tapping the book forcibly.] And so this ...
— The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith • Arthur Wing Pinero
... I have been lately made acquainted' [and so I have by Betty, and she by my brother] 'with the weak and wanton airs he gives himself of declaiming against matrimony. I severely reprehend him on this occasion: and ask him, with what view he can take so witless, so despicable a liberty, in which only the most abandoned of men allow themselves, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... men in his time, or will you throw away his inheritance before he has had the chance to touch it? Will you let him come, taking your place, gaining through your experiences, hallowed through your joys, building on them his own, or will you fling his hope away, decreeing, wanton-like, that the man you might have been shall ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... ardour of my mistress, I was sufficiently master of myself to disappoint her at the critical moment, for the picture which our friend had drawn was always before my eyes. M—— M——, joyous and wanton, having me for the first time in the character of boatman, augmented our delights by her amorous caprices, but it was useless for her to try to add fuel to my flame, since I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... marched out to slaughter and be slaughtered with a sullen pride in the daring that this mightier ferocity has put upon it. When it has mastered its Drusus, its Domitian, its Nero, its Vespasian and its Louis XVI, it has indulged in wanton excesses of rage and destruction until, spent with exhaustion, a new master has arisen to tie it up like a whipped dog. It was this gloomy and savage force that crowded into the greatest tribunal of ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... a crime! It's wanton! Those ravines are the most beautiful natural spots in Wisconsin. Why, they're ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... period closes with Pope Damasus and his two successors. The Christian bishop has become important enough for his election to count in profane history. Paganism is writhing in death pangs; Christianity is growing haughty and wanton in ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... have spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, rivers, cascades, intermingled with smiling farms ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... sentenced her, by way of penance for her sins, to walk in midday through the streets of London, from one end of the city to the other, almost entirely undressed. The intention of this severe exposure was to designate her to those who should assemble to witness the punishment as a wanton, and thus to put her to shame, and draw upon her the scorn and derision of the populace. They found some old and obsolete law which authorized such a punishment. The sentence was carried into effect on a Sunday. The unhappy criminal was conducted through the ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... with her knights came forth, and Brunhild began, "Stop! thou hast called me a wanton and shalt prove it, for know that thy ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... life thou true repose, Wherein the wise contemplate heaven aright, In thee no dread of war or worldly foes, In thee no pomp seduceth mortal sight. In thee no wanton cares to win with words, Nor lurking toys which silly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... describe them as fools, for what will it matter to posterity what their initials or names are; they only rouse the ire of those who follow them and a feeling of disappointment that they had not caught the offenders in their act of wanton mischief and been able to administer ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... phenomenon. One would have thought that the mere sight of the little boy, his tender age; his delicate look, his extreme gentleness and courtesy of manner, and the mute appealing glance in his blue eyes, would have sufficed to protect him from wanton outrage. It did suffice with most boys; but if anything, it added zest and piquancy to the persecutions of those two ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... purpose. I thought how good and sweet she was to that irritatingly silly old frump her mother, and wondered if it really were her mother, or only hired. I pictured her crown of gold-brown hair as I had last seen it with the sunlight kissing its wanton waves, and felt I would like to be quite sure that it ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... ruthless, wanton band, Deep in our hearts we guard from scathe Of last year's log a smouldering brand, To light at Yule ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... also just above the slough, the hill Difficulty, the Interpreter's House, the place somewhat ascending with a cross standing upon it, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre, not to speak of her who assaulted Faithful, whose name was Wanton, and who at one time was like to have done even that trusty pilgrim a lifelong mischief. Christian rather boasted to Charity of his wariness, especially in the matter of his children's amusements, but Charity seemed to think that he had carried his wariness into other matters besides ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... it. "Tho a man do strive for the mastery," saith Paul, "yet he is not crowned, unless he strive lawfully"; that is, unless he so run, and so strive, as to have God's approbation. What, do you think that every heavy-heeled professor will have heaven? What, every lazy one? every wanton and foolish professor, that will be stopt by anything, kept back by anything, that scarce runneth so fast heavenward as a snail creepeth on the ground? Nay, there are some professors that do not go on so fast in the way of God as a snail doth go on the wall; and yet these think that ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... hand pointing up the hill. From the base of the castle a broad blaze rushed, showing window and battlement, arch and tower, as in a flicker of the Northern lights. Then up went all the length of fabric, as a wanton child tosses his Noah's ark. Keep and buttress, tower and arch, mullioned window and battlement, in a fiery furnace leaped on high, like the outburst of a volcano. Then, with a roar that rocked the earth, they broke ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... muffling up her face, Leapt on the pyre: loud wailed that multitude. There burned she, clasping Paris. All the Nymphs Marvelled, beholding her beside her lord Flung down, and heart to heart spake whispering: "Verily evil-hearted Paris was, Who left a leal true wife, and took for bride A wanton, to himself and Troy a curse. Ah fool, who recked not of the broken heart Of a most virtuous wife, who more than life Loved him who turned from ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... a strange speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had committed—for murder it was, that was its true name, and it was without palliation or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It made us miserable, for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... has been heard, read, or thought; and admitting no similitude but to the feverish visions of delirium! so marvellous in fertility of incident, so improbable in excess of calamity, so monstrous in impunity of guilt! the witches of Shakespeare are less wanton in absurdity, and the demons of ...
— Brief Reflections relative to the Emigrant French Clergy (1793) • Frances Burney
... little things run and keep step with the older men and women; their shaggy, frowzled heads are bent, their hands protrude pitifully from their sleeves; they are barefooted, bareheaded. With these little figures the elements wanton; they can never know the fullness of summer or the proper maturity of autumn. Suns have burned them, rains have fallen upon them, as unprotected through storms they go to their work. The winter winds ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... modes of invoking vengeance or retribution from a superhuman power upon the person against whom they are uttered. Anathema is a solemn ecclesiastical condemnation of a person or of a proposition. Curse may be just and authoritative; as, the curse of God; or, it may be wanton and powerless: "so the curse causeless shall not come," Prov. xxvi, 2. Execration expresses most of personal bitterness and hatred; imprecation refers especially to the coming of the desired evil upon the person against whom it is uttered. Malediction is a general wish of ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... down to continue her narrative. I am convinced that nothing would more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity, or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just description of the condition into which the wanton plunges herself; and therefore hope that my letter may be a sufficient antidote to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... which had been well suppressed in the previous cases. The indictment was very similar to that preferred against Nicholls; but, in addition to all that the latter had been charged with, Talbot rapidly enumerated a long list of wanton cruelties and petty tyrannies which had sprung spontaneously and unprompted as it were from the second mate's own evil nature. At the conclusion of Talbot's address the men, without waiting for Rogers to formally charge them, sprang ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... her mother, biting her words before she foamed them from her, "if you weren't a daughter of mine, I'd—I'd say you were a wanton woman. You know in your heart, as your father always taught you—as you could read in the Bible now—if you ever do read your Bible—that the sins of the fathers, yes, and the mothers too, will fall on the children until ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... pointed to within a few inches of my nose, "I said that I kenned her and her kind well, havin' watched the likes o' her ridden out o' Dawson City on a rail more times than once. I said that she was naethin' but a wanton"—only this was not the word Whinnie used—"a wanton o' Babylon and a temptress o' men and a corrupter o' homes out o' her time and place, bein' naught but a soft shinin' thing that was a mockery to the guid God who made her ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... take up next the tragic and far more significant story of 1812-13. With "The Conscript" begins their long, sustained, and eloquent sermon against war and war-wagers—the exordium, so to say, of their arraignment of Napoleon for wanton and insatiate love of conquest. "The Conscript" is certainly one of the most impressive statements of the darker side of the national pursuit of military glory that have ever been made. The first part of the book is taken up with a vivid and pathetic ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... account given of St Helena in the narrative of my former voyage, I find two mistakes. Its inhabitants are far from exercising a wanton cruelty over their slaves, and they have had wheel-carriages and ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... at the moment totally unprepared for such a charge, and was occupied in defending an action brought by the brothers Granius against my wife, Pudentilla. I perceived that these charges were brought forward not so much in a serious spirit as to gratify my opponents' taste for wanton slander. I therefore straightway challenged them, not once only, but frequently and emphatically, to proceed with their accusation. The result was that Aemilianus, perceiving that you, Maximus, not to speak of others, were strongly moved by what had occurred, and that his words had created a ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... Lycurgus abstained from all vengeance, but on the contrary instructed and made a good man of him. Producing him in public in the theatre, he said to the astonished Spartans:—"I received this young man at your hands full of violence and wanton insolence; I restore him to you in his right mind and fit to ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... intelligence and power, with love left out! If this world is not a place of trial and training appointed by love, then it is a scene of capricious cruelty or capricious indifference on the part of our Maker; His providence is a wanton sporting with our weakness and our misery. Why were we brought into being? To amuse His solitary and weary intelligence, and to become the victims or the indulged manifestations of His power. Why is one man selected for extreme agony from which a score of his fellows escape? Because ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... God's justice is so rigorous toward the wanton, His mercy is never so great as toward those who need it most, who desire it and ask it. The most touching episodes in the Gospels are those in which Christ opened wide the arms of His charity to sinful but repentant ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... expenditure of Buckingham's residences; they were such as to have extorted the wonder even of Bassompierre, and unquestionably excited the indignation of those who lived in a poor court, while our gay and thoughtless minister alone could indulge in the wanton profusion. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Occasionally she ferreted out a trembling wretch in the rear and drove him to the front with taunts; or, if he were too panic-stricken to get up, she had no compunction in thrashing him with a stick until he did so. The little savage was beside herself as she danced and sang like a wanton child in the rain—a rain of Martini and Lee-Remington balls stinging the air ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... make this excuse for their sinful vanity doth but add to their condemnation. If a man go any whit beyond God's appointment and the comfort of nature, I know not where he will stop, until he grows to be the veriest ruffian in the world. It is a wanton and shameful thing for a man to liken himself to a woman, by suffering his hair to grow, and curling and parting it in a seam, as is the manner of too many. It betokeneth pride and vanity, and causeth no small offence to ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... very natural for Twirling-stick Mike to repent him suddenly of his wanton cruelty. The scoffing words of the dwarf rang in his ears, and he felt by no means easy. To make what amends he might to the deceased, he had him sumptuously buried at his own expense, with funeral oration, psalms, prayer, and benediction; and what is more, put up a very pretty monument ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... obvious evil results of war we would be compelled to name at least ten: The wanton destruction of human life; the maiming and suffering inflicted upon the wounded; the breaking up of homes and the terrible suffering caused to women and children; the loss of wealth and property, with the subsequent hardship for the poor which it entails, and the destruction of art, architecture, ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... revolver and rode over at once to investigate. It was fortunate that he did so, for he would have reached the old camp and found it, not only deserted, but also wrecked, with torn gear and evidences of wanton destruction all over the place. He would naturally have thought that his former companions had either been killed or carried off, and as the sandstorm had covered up all tracks, he would not have known ...
— In the Musgrave Ranges • Jim Bushman
... of glory rise Before my dazzled eyes! Young Zephyrs wave their wanton wings, And melody celestial rings: Along the lilied lawn the nymphs advance, Plush'd with love's bloom, and range the sprightly dance: The gladsome shepherds on the mountain-side, Array'd in all their rural pride, Exalt the festive note, Inviting Echo from her inmost grot— But ah! ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... ill-chosen. He was skill'd To tune the lulling flute, and melt the heart; Or with his pipe's awak'ning strains allure The lovely dames of Lydia to the dance. They on the verdant level graceful mov'd In vary'd measures; while the cooling breeze Beneath their swelling garments wanton'd o'er Their snowy breasts, and smooth Cayster's streams Soft-gliding murmur'd by. The ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... wish to live peaceably, but I have lately experienced so many instances of your most bare-faced and wanton oppression, to my prejudice, that there's no longer a doubt with me what course I must be under the disagreeable necessity to take, that I may obtain redress and do justice to myself and family. I shall expect your immediate answer for my future government, ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... heard the Romaine state, And Quirinus, whose strong puissant arme, Did shild the tops and turrets of proud Rome, Do now conspire to wracke the gallant Ship, Euen in the harbor of her wished greatnesse. And her gay streamers, and faire wauering sayles, With which the wanton wind was wont to play, To drowne ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... that temperance is not only about desires and pleasures. For Tully says (De Invent. Rhet. ii, 54) that "temperance is reason's firm and moderate mastery of lust and other wanton emotions of the mind." Now all the passions of the soul are called emotions of the mind. Therefore it seems that temperance is not only about desires ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... the arrival of strangers, to welcome them by diversions of different kinds. I found a great crowd surrounding a party who were dancing, by the light of some large fires, to the music of four drums, which were beat with great exactness and uniformity. The dances, however, consisted more in wanton gestures than in muscular exertion or graceful attitudes. The ladies vied with each other in displaying the ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... however, for along with other circumstances they stirred up the English Government to make some inquiries into the manner in which Englishmen treated the natives of uncivilised countries. These inquiries showed much injustice and sometimes wanton cruelty, and when a petition came from the respectable people of Kororarika, asking that some check should be put upon the licence of the low white men who frequented that port, the English Government resolved to annex New Zealand if the Maoris were willing to be received into the British Empire. ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... from the smoke-house, the flour from the bin, the delicacies from the pantry. These things, though forbidden, are half excused by sympathy with the soldier's craving for variety of food. Yet, as the habit of measuring right by might goes on, pillage becomes wanton and arson is committed to cover the pillage. The best efforts of a provost-marshal with his guard will be useless when superior officers, and especially colonels of regiments, encourage or wink at license. The character of different commands becomes as notoriously different as that of the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... him and he longed to be alone. Some sorrows are so personal they cannot be shared. Nor was it all sorrow. There was the passion of a fierce resentment, the bitter protest of helpless nature against a wanton and ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... death, And in their smoothness amity and life; About them hangs a knot of amber hair, Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was, On which the breath of heaven delights to play, Making it dance with wanton majesty; His arms and fingers long and sinewy, [67] Betokening valour and excess of strength;— In every part proportion'd like the man Should make the world subdu'd ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... by a tall and refined old clergyman to Miss Norah Hood, he found himself shaking hands with a grave young person of unassertive beauty. Hers was the loveliness of the violet, which is apt to pall in this modern day—to aggravate, and to suggest wanton waste. For feminine loveliness is on the wane— marred, like many other good things, by over-education. Norah Hood was a typical country parson's daughter, who knew the right and did it, ignored the wrong and refused to ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... doux! What does a woman like that want here?" said she. "A wide mouth and wanton eyes. La Closerie has never had these before—a Frenchwoman too!"—with withering contempt. For, odd as it may seem, among this people originally French, and still speaking a patois based, like their laws and customs, on the old Norman, ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... eleaven or twelve returnes of the leafe old (for soe they accompt and bring about the yeare, calling the fall of the leaf tagnitock); nor are thev much ashamed thereof, and therefore would the before remembered Pocahontas, a well featured, but wanton yong girle, Powhatan's daughter, sometymes resorting to our fort, of the age then of eleven or twelve yeares, get the boyes forth with her into the markett place, and make them wheele, falling on their hands, turning up their heeles upwards, whome she would followe and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... violent speeches which followed the announcement of the new policy; the dogmatic prognostications of Imperial disruption, of financial collapse, and of a cruel Boer tyranny in the emancipated Colonies; the charges of wanton betrayal of loyalists, of disgraceful surrender to "the enemy." Some of the leading actors in these scenes, notably Mr. Balfour and Mr. Lyttelton, have since acknowledged that they were wrong, while apparently feeling it their ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... and producing, long after they had ceased to have anything to say, racking their brains to find something new, something more sensational, more bizarre: for the public was surfeited and sick of everything, and soon wearied of even the most wanton imaginary pleasures: they had always to go one better—better than the rest, better than their own best—and they squeezed out their very life-blood, they squeezed out their guts: it was a pitiable sight, ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... surely, was an eye so fitted to rob my Uncle TOBY of his repose as the very eye at which he was looking. It was not, Madam, a rolling eye, a dissatisfied or a revolutionary one—nor was it an eye wicked, wanton, or wandering—but it was an eye sparkling, petulant, and imperious, of high claims, and large exactions—an eye full of brisk challenges and sharp responses, an eye of satisfied strength and confident ascendancy—speaking, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... will go up to the castle. I must get acquainted with this mirror of owls, this modern Till Eulenspiegel. See what a glorious morning we have! It is truly a wondrous winter! what summer sunshine; what soft Venetian fogs! How the wanton, treacherous air coquets with the old gray-beard trees! Such weather makes the grass and our beards grow apace! But we have an old saying in English, that winter never rots in the sky. So he will come down at last in his ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Our wanton accidents take root, and grow To vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes, Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters Become ourselves, and we would fain forget There live ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple! how we have been able to give our senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a godlike desire for wanton pranks and wrong inferences!—how from the beginning, we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness, and gaiety—in order to enjoy life! And only ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... means of disturbing poor old Sir Walter with a subject so sore and unwelcome that I could only conclude it must have been the immediate cause of his sudden illness. Nothing could be farther from my nature than to have been guilty of such seemingly wanton inhumanity; but I had no opportunity afterwards of explaining the truth, or of justifying ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... drave the salvages from their houses, and took the spoil of them, as they would have done of us." After this exploit they returned to the ship and set sail immediately. It does not appear from the journal that the natives had ever offered them any harm or given any provocation for so wanton an act. The writer only asserts that they would have done it if they could. No plea is more commonly used to justify tyranny and cruelty than the supposed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... which an English witness, Captain William Jesse, calls "a wanton fusillade," lasted from two till five o'clock. During these three terrible hours, Louis Bonaparte carried out what he had been premeditating, and completed his work. Up to that time the poor little "middle-class" conscience was almost indulgent. Well, what of it? It was a game at Prince, ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... to collect all the beef cattle, corn and other necessary supplies on the line of march; but wanton destruction of property, taking of articles useless for military purposes, insulting citizens, going into and searching houses without proper orders from division commanders, are positively prohibited. All such irregularities must be ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... inhabitants was intense although, among the latter, this was mingled with a certain feeling of uneasiness. Deserters had at various times brought in reports that, should Gibraltar be again relieved, it was the purpose of the Spaniards to bombard the town. Hopes were entertained that so wanton an act of cruelty would not be carried out, for the entire destruction of the town would not advance, in the smallest degree, the progress ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... and the most reckless gamblers that the capital could produce. Thus attracted, the infatuated monarch became her constant guest; and his neglected wife, in weak health, and with an agonised heart, saw herself abandoned for a wanton who had set a price upon her virtue, and who made a glory of ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Give it to me; with care. It is most costly. Touch it with care. And now, my noble Lord - Nay, pardon, I have here a Lucca damask, The very web of silver and the roses So cunningly wrought that they lack perfume merely To cheat the wanton sense. Touch it, my Lord. Is it not soft as water, strong as steel? And then the roses! Are they not finely woven? I think the hillsides that best love the rose, At Bellosguardo or at Fiesole, Throw no such blossoms on the lap of spring, Or if they do their blossoms droop and die. ...
— A Florentine Tragedy—A Fragment • Oscar Wilde
... the sandy, rock-ribb'd shore One year ago sat you and I, And heard the sullen breakers roar, And saw the stately ships go by; And wanton ocean breezes fanned Your cheeks into a ruddy glow, And I—I pressed your ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... mirth and the convivial din Of revelers in wanton glee, With tunes of harp and violin ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... words considered separately or joined together. In regard to the former, care must be taken that there be no decrease by adding a weaker word to a stronger, as accusing one of sacrilege, and giving him afterward the name of thief; or adding the character of wanton fellow to that of a highwayman. The sense ought to increase and rise, which Cicero observes admirably where he says: "And thou, with that voice, those lungs, and that gladiator-like vigor of thy whole body." ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... Effingham, you have heard this wanton insult," continued Captain Truck, suppressing his wrath as well as he could: "in what mariner ought it ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the French come they will find this town perfectly empty. Except my own, I do not think there are three houses in Ostend with a bed in them. So general a panic I never witnessed." June 30th.—"To remain here alone would be a wanton sacrifice. God knows 'tis an awful stroke to me to leave a place just as I began to be comfortably settled." Consul Harward: Records: Army in Germany, vol. 440. "All the English are arrested in Ostend; the men are confined in the Capuchin convent, and the women in the Convent des Soeurs ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Would they have spent their time in social festivities and in exchanging compliments had they known that they were on the brink of war? It is inconceivable! It would be a gross libel on them, one and all, to charge such a wanton disregard ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... what had passed betwixt our blessed Saviour and that wonder of Women, and Sinners, and Mourners, St. Mary Magdalen. I call her Saint, because I did not then, nor do now consider her, as when she was possessed with seven devils; not as when her wanton eyes and dishevelled hair were designed and managed to charm and ensnare amorous beholders. But I did then, and do now consider her, as after she had expressed a visible and sacred sorrow for her sensualities; as after those eyes had wept such a flood of penitential tears ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... surrounded the house, and seized most of those who were within, consisting of fifty persons, old and young. Among these were the wives and children of Quibian, and several of his principal subjects. No one was wounded, for there was no resistance, and the Adelantado never permitted wanton bloodshed. When the poor savages saw their prince a captive, they filled the air with lamentations; imploring his release, and offering for his ransom a great treasure, which they said lay concealed ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... also find that the Bible has not civilized mankind. A book that establishes and defends slavery and wanton war is not calculated to soften the hearts of those who believe implicitly that it is the work of God. A book that not only permits, but commands religious persecution, has not in my judgment developed the affectional nature of man. Its influence has been bad and bad only. It has filled the world ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... chair with a forcible oath. Jeff, too, was on his feet. There was a frantic clatter beyond the screen of creeper. A string of hoarse invective in a human voice. The hammering of horses' hoofs and the sound of tin being battered in a wanton riot. Dug broke into a great laugh as he ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... Russians to mistreat the people of Galicia. They came, in their own estimation at least, as deliverers, not as despoilers. As for the Austrians, they were in their own country when in Galicia. When they penetrated north into Russia, it appears that they did little wanton damage. On their return, it is true, they laid waste a large part of the province of Volhynia, burning villages and farmsteads as they proceeded. But this was dictated by military exigencies, in order to delay ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... those tempting eyes, that faultless form, Those looks with feeling and with nature warm; The neck, the softly-swelling bosom hide, Nor, wanton gales, blow the light vest aside; For who, when beauties more than life excite Silent applause, can gaze without delight! But innocence, enchanting maid, is thine; Thine eyes in liquid light unconscious shine; And may thy breast no other feelings prove, Than those ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... sleep in rose-buds, soft and sweet, "We revel in the stream; "We wanton lightly on the wind, "Or glide on ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... when a ship, by skilful steersman wrought Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail,— So varied he, and of his tortuous train Curl'd many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve To lure ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... haughty oppression of the one and the wanton cruelty of the other, have given Scotland too many wounds for me to hold a shield before them; meet them, and I leave them ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... contumaciously refused to hold any intercourse with the commander of the Cyane. By their obstinate silence they seemed rather desirous to provoke chastisement than to escape it. There is ample reason to believe that this conduct of wanton defiance on their part is imputable chiefly to the delusive idea that the American Government would be deterred from punishing them through fear of displeasing a formidable foreign power, which they presumed to think looked with complacency upon their aggressive ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... explanation of the anger and condemnation felt by the moral man in the presence of the "brazen" woman lies in the threat to his purposes of respectability and faithfulness; he is angered that this creature can arouse a conflict in him. The bitterness of the "saint" against the wanton originates in the ease with which she tempts him, and his natural conclusion is that the fault lies with her and not with his own passions. The respectable woman inveigles against her more untrammeled sister, not so much through her concern for morality, as through the anger felt against an unscrupulous ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... construction of the impeachment power. He argued that incapacity, negligence, or perfidy of the Chief Magistrate should be ground for impeachment.[480] Again, in discussing the President's power of removal, he maintained that the wanton removal from office of meritorious officers would be an act of maladministration, and would render the President liable to impeachment.[481] Hamilton thought the proceeding could "never be tied down by such strict rules, either in the ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... before the luxuriant forest was felled for fuel, and the land was burnt for plantations which were never planted. A few noble trees linger beside and behind the lighthouse, filling one with regret for the wanton destruction of their kind. Lighthouse Hillock, which commands the approach to the port, and which would sweep the waters as far as the Sa Leone River, will be provided with powerful batteries before the next maritime war. And ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... mountain known of old to my father and me, and it seemed to me as though there were a spring of water there, though the water was very near dried up. But looking closer, I saw that it was quite full; so I bethought me that I would drink thereof, and I leaned over, when lo! that Evil-wanton (I mean the Devil) caught me by the beard and would not let me go. I begged and prayed, but still he held me tight. 'Give me,' said he, 'what thou hast at home, or I'll never let thee go!'—And I said to him, 'Lo! now, I have horses.'—'I don't want thy horses!' said ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... very great obligation. Since the Romans saw you in my theatre—you, a man of the most approved taste, of the soundest knowledge, and a master in art, not only has my fame increased, but my receipts have doubled. I am therefore all the more deeply pained to learn that certain wicked wanton boys made a murderous attack upon you and your friends as you were returning from my theatre at night. But I pray you, Signor Pasquale, by all the saints, don't cherish any grudge against me or my theatre on account of this outrage, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... universe. How much more then from the point of view of ends we cannot see! Wise men therefore regret as little as they can. But still some regrets are pretty obstinate and hard to stifle,—regrets for acts of wanton cruelty or treachery, for example, whether performed by others or by ourselves. Hardly any one can remain entirely optimistic after reading the confession of the murderer at Brockton the other day: ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... death of Attis, but really perhaps for the same reason which induced the women of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept for Tammuz. To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised and broken body of the god. Or the fast may possibly have been a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... heard) had deliuered Catarac into the Romans hands, thereby ministring matter for the emperour Claudius to triumph, by which pleasure shewed to the Romans, she increased thorough their friendship in power and wealth, whereof followed riotous lust to satisfie hir wanton appetite, so as she falling at square with hir [Sidenote: Vellocatus.] husband, married Vellocatus, one of his esquires, to whom she gaue hir kingdome, and so dishonoured hir selfe. Heerevpon insued cruell warre, in so much that in the end Venutius became ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... and all my life intended, —writing a comedy. Your goodness, your kindness, your regard for my fame, I know have caused both your trepidation, which doomed me to certain failure, and your displeasure that I ran, what you thought, a wanton risk. But it is not wanton, my dearest father. My imagination is not at my own control, or I would always have continued in the walk YOU approved. The combinations for another long work did not occur ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... its windows commanded the same exquisite view which had charmed Cicero and Lucullus, Severus and the Antonines. Hard by stood Baia, the princely seaside resort of the empire. That most luxurious and wanton of all cities of antiquity survived the cataclysms of ages, and only lost its civic continuity and became the ruined village of to-day in the sack of the fifteenth century. But a continuity of wickedness is not so easily broken, ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... grew older she was becoming wiser. She realized what an awful price she was paying for her fun. She knew that, with the sacrifice of her chastity, she had surrendered everything a self-respecting woman holds dear, all for what—a few glittering trinkets! In what was she better than a common wanton? And what would her end be, but the end of all women of her kind? When her youth had passed and her beauty had faded, her admirers would grow cold and indifferent. Abandoned by all, friendless and homeless, she would go unwept ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... of war in Britain, under Suetonius Paullinus, an active and prudent commander, who chose him for his tent companion, in order to form an estimate of his merit. [16] Nor did Agricola, like many young men, who convert military service into wanton pastime, avail himself licentiously or slothfully of his tribunitial title, or his inexperience, to spend his time in pleasures and absences from duty; but he employed himself in gaining a knowledge ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... a very holy woman, much like Lazarus, her brother; but Mary was a loose and wanton creature; Martha did seldom miss good sermons and lectures, when she could come at them in Jerusalem; but Mary would frequent the house of sports, and the company of the vilest of men for lust. And though Martha had often desired ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... which his family had originally come. Her memory worked rapidly, constructing the story. The blood dyed her face at the thought of her obtuseness. Then she set her lips firmly. She had done her best; if a wanton fate chose to interfere now and make Millicent slave to the phantom of her early, radiant love, she, ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... extension of my limbs, languid stretching, sighs, short heavings, all conspired to as-ure that experienced wanton that I was more pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated kisses and exclamations, such as "Oh! what a charming creature thou art! What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... hundred miles, burdened with his women and children, the old men and the wounded, surrendered at last, as he told me in Washington, because he could "bear no longer the sufferings of the innocent." These men were not bloodthirsty or wanton murderers; they were as gentle at home as they were terrific in battle. Chief Joseph would never harm a white woman or child, and more than once helped non-combatants ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... by some of the bands of marauders which followed the advance of the Confederate troops when they invaded Maryland, or, who perhaps, living unfortunately in the very track of the conflicting armies, found themselves driven from their burning homesteads, and devastated fields, victims of a wanton soldiery. Destitute, ragged and shelterless, their condition appealed with peculiar force to the friends of the Union. State aid was by no means sufficient, and unorganized charity unavailable to any ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... transepts, columns, windows gray and gold, The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled, The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places, The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces, All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord Were struck and broken by the wanton sword Of sacrilegious lust. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... my last evening with you. Do you think a woman has the right to be as gloriously beautiful as you are to-night? Do you think it's fair to the feelings of a poor wretched man, who adores her, and whom she, in mere wanton wickedness, is sending to the uttermost ends of ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... widow, wife, or maid, Be she wanton, be she staid, Be she well or ill array'd, So man's for woman made, And woman made ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... FLUID DEBILITATE. The seminal fluid consists of the most vital elements in the human body. It not only assists in maintaining the life of the individual, but communicates the essential, transforming principle which generates another mortal having an imperishable existence. Its waste is a wanton expenditure, which robs the blood of its richness and exhausts the body of its animating powers. No wonder that its loss enfeebles the constitution, and results in impotency, premature decline, St. Vitus's dance, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... and as briskly lowered, time after time, with an automatic precision worthy of a Prussian drill-ground. Can it be their method of intimidating an always possible aggressor? Can it be a manifestation of gaiety, when the wanton sun warms their full paunches? Whether sign of fear or sign of bliss, this is the only exercise that the gluttons allow themselves until the proper degree ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... with a new-acquainted knave. But God, loving her more tenderly than to suffer her to fall into such shameful beastly sin, sendeth her in season a goodly fair fervent fever, that maketh her bones to rattle and wasteth away her wanton flesh. And it beautifieth her fair skin with the colour of a kite's claw, and maketh her look so lovely that her love would have little pleasure to look upon her. And it maketh her also so lusty that if her lover lay in her lap she should so sore long ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... women break their marriage vow, it is seldom for any merely frivolous or sordid reason (of course excepting the essentially wanton type, whom no man should be fool enough to marry), but nearly always either because they are under the spell of infatuation for the other man, or because they are utterly miserable in their marriage and seek to drug themselves to forgetfulness or indifference by means of the poison of some intrigue. ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... interests were rather the reverse of a remedy. Accordingly, the Company's servants have ever since covered over the worst oppressions of the people under their government, and the most cruel and wanton ravages of all the neighboring countries, by holding out, and for a time actually realizing, additions of revenue to the territorial funds of the Company, and great quantities of valuable ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... for using every endeavour to preserve those pictures that remain to us; but probably a far greater number have perished from damp or neglect, and a strange combination of mischief and ignorance. Let us hope that in this respect the times are improving. For one, I cannot consent to the wanton destruction of a single portrait, though ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... is false and a wanton perversion of the true doctrine is manifest from the fact that we exalt and endorse the command of God, and also the doctrine of reason, that teach us to do good and avoid evil. Indeed, we assist reason, which is powerless to remedy evil. If reason were itself sufficient, men ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... seen fit to profit by the experience of the past, the whole of the suffering and loss of the next year and a half of wanton hostilities, in all human probability, would have been avoided. But Mr. Chamberlain's rebuke was disregarded. The senseless and unnatural alliance between the Afrikander nationalists and the Liberal Opposition was renewed. It is quite true that the official leader of ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... dull disposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil. No precepts will profit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music the deaf. As we should take care that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty, we should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far-fetched descriptions; either is a vice. But that is worse which proceeds out of want, than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is easy, but no labour will help the contrary; I will ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... itself; wealth, friendship, honour, All present joys, and earnest of all future, Are summ'd in thee. Come, lead me forward, now, like a tame lamb To sacrifice. Thus, in his fatal garlands Deck'd fine and pleas'd, the wanton skips and plays, Trots by th' enticing, flatt'ring, priestess' side, And, much transported with its little pride, Forgets his dear companions of the plain; Till, by her bound, he's on the altar lain, Yet then too hardly bleats, such pleasure's ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... father everything, auntie," she declared. "I leave it all to him," and bore in silence the comments, without the utterance of which the elder vestal felt she could not conscientiously quit the field. "Bold," "immodest," "unmaidenly," "wanton," were a choice few of Aunt Janet's expletives, and these were unresented. But when she concluded with "I shall send this—thing to him at once, with my personal apologies for the act of an irresponsible child," up sprang Angela with rebellion flashing from her eyes. She had suffered punishment ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... least greatly postponed, by wise statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you will look closely into the history of that time—and there is no history which is more instructive—you ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... suitable to the condition of a dying penitent; his lordship expressed much contrition for his having so often violated the laws of the one, against his better knowledge, and having spurned the authority of the other in the pride of wanton sophistry. He declared that he was satisfied of the truth of the christian religion, that he thought it the institution of heaven, and afforded the most natural idea of the supreme being, as well as the most forcible motives to virtue of any faith professed ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... (Milesiae Fabulae), very wanton and ludicrous tales. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton (Lord Lytton) published six of the Lost Tales of Mil[e]tus in rhymeless verse. He pretends he borrowed them from the scattered remnants preserved by Apollodo'rus and Conon, contained in the pages of Pausa'nias and Athenaeus, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... thick wood, where ruddy arrows of the sun glinted among the boughs; and, here and there, one saw a courtly maple or royal oak wearing a gala mantle of crimson and pale brown, gallants of the forest preparing early for the October masquerade, when they should hold wanton carnival, before they stripped them of their finery ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... and then, the splendor of the sunlight, the dim rich distances, the charm of the water-glimpses! And it was in this paradise that the yellow-liveried convicts were landed, and the Corps-bandits quartered, and the wanton slaughter of the kangaroo-chasing black innocents consummated on that autumn day in May, in the brutish old time. It was all out of keeping with the place, a sort of bringing of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... next morning he rises. He remembers what he has seen and heard, the scenery, the language, the sentiments, the action. He continues in the same excited state for the remainder of the day. The extravagant passions of distracted lovers, the wanton addresses of actors, are still fresh upon his mind. Now it is contended by the Quakers, that a person in such an excited state, but particularly if the excitement pleases, must be in a very unfavourable state for the reception of the pure principle, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... far as the arms of Britain could extend them, have been spread with wanton cruelty along the coast of America; and while you, remote from the scene of suffering, had nothing to lose and as little to dread, the information reached you like a tale of antiquity, in which the distance ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... happiness. No one would believe or could be expected to believe the actual truth of the matter. Who would believe then as regards your uncle that I have gone off and escaped from him still a maid, but a maid to no purpose? Folk would hold me a light-of-love and a wanton, and you a madman. But it is meet to keep and observe the command of St. Paul, for St. Paul teaches him who does not wish to remain continent to act so wisely that he may never incur outcry nor blame nor reproach. It is well to stop an evil mouth, and this ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... eighty-seven thousand spectators, and large hogs were still roasted whole at senatorial banquets, and wines were still drunk which had been stored one hundred years. The "dark-skinned daughters of Isis" still sported unmolested in wanton mien with the priests of Cybele in their discordant cries. The streets still were filled with the worshippers of Bacchus and Venus, with barbaric captives and their Teuton priests, with chariots and horses, with richly apparelled young men, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... Concerning all which, we shall here, for obvious reasons, say nothing. What cares the world for our as yet miniature Philosopher's achievements under that 'brave old Linden'? Or even where is the use of such practical reflections as the following? 'In all the sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages and defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct (schaffenden Trieb): the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, that his vocation is to work. The choicest present you can make him is a Tool; be it knife or pen-gun, for construction ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... pilgrim like himself. Faithful had met with trials; but his trials have not resembled Christian's. Christian's difficulties, like Bunyan's own, had been all spiritual. 'The lusts of the flesh' seem to have had no attraction for him. Faithful had been assailed by 'Wanton,' and had been obliged to fly from her. He had not fallen into the slough; but he had been beguiled by the Old Adam, who offered him one of his daughters for a wife. In the Valley of the Shadow ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... Grace, dryly, as with eyes askance she bent a sapling down. "But I am not incensed against you as you are against me," she added, abandoning the tree to its natural perpendicular. "Before I came I had been despising you for wanton cruelty; now I only pity you for misplaced affection. When Edgar has gone out of the house in hope of seeing you, at seasonable hours and unseasonable; when I have found him riding miles and miles across the country at midnight, and ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... woo me now, Will to the wanton sorc'ress say, "Begone! Respect the cypress on my mournful brow, Lost Happiness hath left regret—but thou Leavest ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... been the brain that lit thy dull concavity! The human race Invest MY face With thine expression of unchecked depravity, Invested with a ghastly reciprocity, I'VE been responsible for thy monstrosity, I, for thy wanton, blundering ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... should suddenly "claim" and "annex" three hundred and thirty-three acres of ground in the heart of Boston or New York. Their newspapers have broken out into flaring head-lines an inch high, and are wild in their denunciations of what they term an outrage; an infamous, high-handed act, a wanton, deliberate theft of territory from a peaceful and friendly country. Really, these Chinese newspapers seem to be describing the business in much the same words, with much the same force and fury and resentment, as our American ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... Cupid! wanton Cupid! 'Twas ever thus your way: When maids would bid you ply your wings, ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... England, as there the death-tribunal awaited her. But Mary Stuart only laughed at my warning, and called me a melancholy fool, whom jealousy made prophetic. The more I begged and implored, the more wanton and gay the poor woman became. Then, as I saw all persuasion was vain, that no one could save her from her dreadful fate, I took a solemn oath that I would be at her side at the hour of her peril, and accompany her to the scaffold. Mary laughed aloud, and, with that mocking gayety so peculiarly ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... echo through the whole country. They are then loosened, get upon their legs again, and like so many branded Cains, are driven out into the country, to make way for others. Such roaring, such shouting, such an odour of singed hair and biftek au naturel, such playing of music, and such wanton risks as were ran ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... got to the rest of the family and they had to tell Celeste, because she was frantic with anxiety. There were grave consultations among the Castleman ladies. It was a wanton affront to his fiance that the boy had committed, and something must be done about it quickly. Then came the news that Roger had escaped from his warders, and got drunker than ever; he had been out at night, smashing the street ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... I sat beneath a shady tree while the birds sang in the groves ... and listened to my Thisbe's talk, the talk I love and long for; and we spoke of the sweet interchange of love, and in the doubtful balance of the mind wanton love and chastity ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... everything exquisitely in keeping with man, but natural features are actually changed, plastic to the imprint of their lord and master's mind. Bushes, shrubs, trees, forget to follow their original intent, and grow as he wills them to; now expanding in wanton luxuriance, now contracting into dwarf designs of their former selves, all to obey his caprice and please his eye. Even stubborn rocks lose their wildness, and come to seem a part of the almost sentient life around them. If the description of such dutifulness seems fanciful, the thing ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... argument is gratis dictum: and as Richard loved Hastings and had used his ministry, the probability lies on the other side: and it is more reasonable to believe that Richard acted in self-defence, than that he exercised a wanton, unnecessary, and disgusting cruelty. The collateral circumstances introduced by More do but weaken(17) his account, and take from its probability. I do not mean the silly recapitulation of silly omens which ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... the library with Boag's Dictionary open in his hand. "'Minx: A pert, wanton girl. A she-puppy.' Do you hear that, Caroline? He calls his sister a wanton she-puppy." But Mamma had gone back ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... hair is soft brown and sweeps back from a low white forehead. She has tried to make it straight and simple, as every woman should, but the angels seem to have curled it here and mussed it there, so that all her care cannot hide its wanton waves. Her face is full of life and health, so open, so candid, that there you read her heart, and you know that it is as good as ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... been justified in burning Newark, under more humane conditions, because this village undoubtedly interfered with the defensive fire of Fort George. But, as he was giving up Fort George, his act was an entirely wanton deed of shame. ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... laughed, and the lurking echoes clasped the music of that laughter in their wanton arms and ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... saw the Kembles twice,—in "Much ado about Nothing," and "The Stranger." The first night I felt much disappointed in Miss K. In the gay parts a coquettish, courtly manner marred the wild mirth and wanton wit of Beatrice. Yet, in everything else, I liked her conception of the part; and where she urges Benedict to fight with Claudio, and where she reads Benedict's sonnet, she was admirable. But I received no ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... narrative without mentioning an act of bravery performed by a lone woman which stopped the vulgar and inhuman searching of women in our section of the city. The most atrocious and unpardonable act of the mob was the wanton disregard for womanhood. Lizzie Smith was the first woman to make a firm and stubborn stand against the proceeding in the southern section. It was near the noon hour when Lizzie, homeward bound, reached the ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... blood that runs into song, chiefly because song is the voice of a joy. And no doubt, when I look back on the past years I must own that I have too often been led astray from the objects set before my reason, and cherished at my heart, by erring impulse or wanton fancy." ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to applaud greatly any amorous wanton Dance; and be no less favourable to those Scenes where the Business of Love is transacted, and almost brought to a Conclusion on the Stage: Many of which occur in Congreve, Vanbrugh, ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... careless of their charge, And wanton, in full ease now live at large: Unguarded leave the passes of the sky, And all dissolved in ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... ordered all the French captives who had been collected into the city to be cruelly murdered, and binding Father Vacher, the French Resident, hand and foot, had him tied to a mortar and fired off like a bomb against the French fleet. This wanton piece of atrocity so exasperated Duguesne, that, laying his fleet as near land as possible, he continued his cannonade until he had destroyed all their shipping, fortifications, buildings; in short, almost the whole of the lower town, and about ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... was the rapidly rising wind, which fortunately arose directly behind them. It was at first different from any ordinary breeze. It seemed to come along like a thing of life, now catching up a handful of water and scattering it like sand, then bounding up in wanton sport, and then once more trailing on the waters and making it ripple in lines or lanes, as in mad sport it now more rapidly ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... arrival of the princess, Rana Bahadur’s wife. The unprincipled chief had connected himself with one of these frail but pure beauties, (Gandharbin,) with which the holy city abounds, had stript his wife of her jewels to bestow them on this wanton companion, and finally had turned his wife out of doors. As the slave regent had the meanness to seize on the income of the town, assigned for the princess’s dowry, the poor lady was reduced to the utmost distress, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... greater imminence of the danger, in having to contend with armed men instead of ferocious brutes, and in the higher value of the prizes which they would obtain in case of success. The idea of there being any injustice or wrong in this wanton and unprovoked aggression upon the territories of a neighboring nation seems not to have entered the mind either of the royal robber himself ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... before. But that which made me tremble from head to foot with more and worse than cold, was the little white figure that danced about his bed—for all the world like a crisped leaf in late autumn which whirls and turns, skipping this way and spinning that in the wanton breezes. It was the Little Playmate. But I could not form a word wherewith to call her. My tongue seemed ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... speaks as positively as that, I am not in the habit of talking back and getting into trouble. Situated as I am, I would not be able to understand, now, how you could pass by this town without feeling that you were running a wanton risk and doing a daredevil thing. I consider it settled that you are to come in March, and I would be sincerely sorry to learn that you and Mrs. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... young man unreservedly agreed—"like a wanton meddling ass!" His candour, his freedom had decidedly a note of their own. "But my conviction, after those moments with your picture, was too strong for me not to speak—and, since you allow it, I face the danger and risk ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... these no doubt wanton reflections on the unfair division of opportunities in human life, I was leisurely crossing the common, and presently I came up with a pedestrian who, though I had little suspected it as I caught sight of him ahead, was destined by a kind providence to make more entertaining talk for ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... and Timur betrayed a design of leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed to the severity ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank in their dress, all being in a state of Nature; that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. I am here convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed." (Letters and Works, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shall, round another sighing, (Forgot the serpents stinging at my breast,) Gaily, when I in the dumb grave am lying, Pour the warm wish, or speed the wanton jest, Or play, perchance, with his new maiden's tresses, Answer the kiss her lip enamour'd brings, When the dread block the head he cradled presses, And high the blood his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... spirits are attentive: For do but note a wild and wanton herd, If any air of music touch their ears, You shall perceive them make a mutual stand, Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze, By the sweet power of music. Therefore, the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods; Since nought ...
— The Merchant of Venice [liberally edited by Charles Kean] • William Shakespeare
... his right hand markedly behind him, her unbound hair streaming over her shoulders, she made a beautiful and arresting picture. A kimono of softest apricot, over which sprawled vivid embroideries, here in the guise of parti-coloured dragons, there in that of a wanton butterfly, swathed her from throat to foot. From the mouths of its gaping sleeves her shapely wrists and hands thrust out snow-white and ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... violent disturbances had broken out, and were marked by all the ferocity and terrorism characteristic of luddism in the manufacturing districts. They spread from Kent, Sussex, and Surrey into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. In these four counties there was a wanton and wholesale destruction of agricultural machinery, of farm-buildings, and especially of ricks, as if the misery of labourers could possibly be cured by impoverishing their only employers. The rioters moved about in large organised ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... teachers. When I was a boy I should have been glad to get hold of a brief account of the War for Independence that would have suggested answers to some of the questions that used to vex me. Was the conduct of the British government, in driving the Americans into rebellion, merely wanton aggression, or was it not rather a bungling attempt to solve a political problem which really needed to be solved? Why were New Jersey and the Hudson river so important? Why did the British armies make South Carolina their chief objective point after New ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske
... Griffith, still staring at the horizon. "Stay me not; my hands itch for their throats; my heart thirsts for their blood; but I'll not hang for a priest and a wanton." Then he suddenly turned on Leicester, "Let thou go, or—" and he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... goose to the small marsh-bird, and of every conceivable variety of dismal note. Off they moved, in wild and alarmed rout, like a people going into exile; filling the air, far and wide, with their reproachful lament at the wanton cruelty which ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... the sun! See, see, he shakes His big red hands at me in wanton fun! A glorious image that! it might be Blake's; As in my critical capacity I took occasion to remark elsewhere, When heaping praise On this exceptionally happy phrase, Although I made it up myself. But I and Blake, we really constitute a pair, Each being ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... saved him at Taimur. Now, Maitland was a born pantomimist, continually inventing practical jokes; and perhaps to startle me with a false alarm in the very skin of the old Bruin which had so nearly done for him, he had thrown it round him on finishing its cleaning, and so, in mere wanton fun, had crept on deck at the hour of his watch. The head of the bear-skin, and the fog, must have prevented him from seeing ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... and therefore like to sticke fast in the flesh, for as it is said, Quod noua testa capit inueterata sapit) at least wise (as the French king suspected) began to fantasie the yoong ladie, and by such wanton talke and companie-keeping as he vsed with hir, he was thought to haue brought hir to consent to his fleshlie lust, which was the cause wherefore he would not suffer his sonne to marrie hir, [Sidenote: ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... readily be understood that by connecting the censorship of the laws with the private interests of members of the community, and by intimately uniting the prosecution of the law with the prosecution of an individual, legislation is protected from wanton assailants, and from the daily aggressions of party spirit. The errors of the legislator are exposed whenever their evil consequences are most felt, and it is always a positive and appreciable fact which serves as the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Reign we live in. For surely 'tis but affected Softness of Heart, and Mock, Sickly Sentiment, to maintain that Highwaymen, Horse-stealers, and other hardened villains, do not deserve the Tree, and do not righteously Suffer for their misdeeds; or that wanton women do not deserve bodily correction, so long as it be done within Bridewell Walls, and not in front of the Sessions House, for the ribald Populace to stare at. Truly our present code is a merciful ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... on the march from Furrah, comes scrambling on the roof, and in loud tones of complaint addresses himself to Kiftan Sahib's peacefully snoozing proportions. His midnight eruption consists of some grievance against his fellows; perhaps some such wanton act of injustice as appropriating his blanket or stealing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... the 1st ed. In the account given of St Helena in the narrative of my former voyage, I find two mistakes. Its inhabitants are far from exercising a wanton cruelty over their slaves, and they have had wheel-carriages and porters' knots ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... street, where cheap vaudevilles are strung together as glass-pearls on the throat of a wanton. Gaudy bill-boards, drenched in clamorous red, proclaimed the tawdry attractions within. Much to the surprise of the doorkeeper at a particularly evil-looking music hall, Reginald Clarke lingered in the lobby, and finally even bought a ticket ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... pursues is nothing but the removal of a dissatisfaction, and vanishes at once when the longing is stilled, to be replaced by fresh wants, that is, by new pains. In view of the indescribable misery in the world, to favor optimism is evidence not so much of folly and blindness as of a wanton disposition. The old saying is true: Non-existence is better than existence. The misery, however, is the just punishment for the original sin of the individual, which gave itself its particular existence by an act ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... her to say there that she wished nothing of the sort? Her stedfast eyes spoke as much: but misery is wanton, and will pull all down to it. Even Harry was checked by his tone, and Laxley sat silent. The fact that something more than a tailor was speaking seemed to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... more than conquer others—he has conquered himself: and in the midst of the blaze and flush of victory, surrounded by the homage of nations, he has not been betrayed into the commission of any act of cruelty or wanton offence. He was as cool and self-possessed under the blaze and dazzle of fame as a common man would be under the shade of his garden-tree, or by the hearth of his home. But the tyrant who kept Europe in awe is now a pitiable object for scorn to point ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to seize any property necessary for an army provided receipts are duly handed over to the persons from whom the goods are obtained. The Germans invariably acted in this way during the Franco-Prussian war, and no historian has ever described them as "savages" for this reason. Of course the wanton destruction of property which appears to have been perpetrated by the Boers in Natal is ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... penalties. Maybe you know nothing of the meaning of crime, as we understand it. Maybe you think us just paid machines, without feelings, without sentiment, cold, ruthless creatures who are here to run down criminals, as the old-time Indians ran down the buffalo, in a wanton love of destroying life. Believe me, it isn't so. We're particularly humane, and would far rather see folks well within the law and prospering, the same as we want to prosper ourselves. We don't fancy the work of shutting up our fellow creatures from all ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Knowledge and Experience do not enter. They stay without, together with the dull, dead clay of which they form a part; while the freed brain, released from their narrowing tutelage, steals softly past the ebon gate, to wanton at its own sweet will among the mazy paths that wind through ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... he said angrily. "I am going to talk plain to you. You are a fool, a downright, empty-headed silly fool. What you have destroyed in wanton carelessness would have kept the life in a man a whole day. Haven't you sense enough to see it's going to be nip and tuck if we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... ye west society in ye time of ye forenoone service on s'd Day by her rude and Indecent Behaviour in Laughing and Playing in ye time of ye s'd Service which Doinges of ye s'd Tabatha is against ye peace of our Sovereign Lord ye King, his Crown and Dignity." Wanton Tabatha had to pay three shilings sixpence for her ill-timed mid-winter frolic. Perhaps she laughed to try to keep warm. Those who laughed at the misdemeanors of others were fined as well. Deborah Bangs, a young girl, ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... protection of the Church. It sounds somewhat like a paradox to assert that the exclusion from churches of all that is not distinctly connected with the service of religion was mainly due to the Puritans, of whose wanton irreverence in sacred buildings we hear so much. Yet this seems certainly to have been the case. Traces of the older usage lingered on, as we have seen, into the middle of the last century; but from the time of the Commonwealth they ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... severally, because we would not pester one another; and now they being all grown up, and gone, and married after our manner (except some two or three of the youngest) for (growing my self into years) I liked not the wanton annoyance of young company. ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... withal She rather took than got a fall, The wanton ambler chanc'd to see Part of her legs' sincerity: And ravish'd thus, it came to pass, The nag (like to the prophet's ass) Began to speak, and would have been A-telling what rare sights he'd seen: And had told all; but did refrain Because his tongue ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... contracting your sight to a narrower scope, it lighteth on the faire and commodious hauen, where the tyde daily presenteth his double seruice, of flowing and ebbing, to carry and recarry whatsoeuer the Inhabitants shall bee pleased to charge him withall, and his creekes (like a young wanton louer) folde about the land, with ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... shivered with the horror of it, but for the first time it came to him: Briscoe had provoked his own death. He had physically attacked the Lhari—threatened them, goaded them to shoot him down in self-defense! "I've been on shipboard with them for months. They're not wanton murderers." ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... incident in war-stricken Europe. It was only a few months ago and during the terrible campaign in Eastern Poland, even while shells were bursting and men were dying, that the Central Powers stopt, as it were, in the mad rush of wanton destruction, to re-establish and reorganize the old University of Warsaw. More than that, they added to the old institution two new faculties, or colleges, as ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... quoted Mr. Storey's articles, and said, with great regret, that it was only too true of Indianapolis also, judging by the wanton manners of troops of the girls attending ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Ruined and living narrowly on the remains of his great fortune, he let himself be gradually devoured by the countess, who ate up the husks Nana had rejected. Sabine was indeed ruined by the example of promiscuity set her by her husband's intercourse with the wanton. She was prone to every excess and proved the ultimate ruin and destruction of his very hearth. After sundry adventures she had returned home, and he had taken her back in a spirit of Christian resignation and forgiveness. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... debauchery, their early marriages, etc.? All these vices and excesses are only the cloak of pauperism; but the cause, the original cause which inexorably holds four-fifths of the human race in disgrace,—what is it? Did not Nature make all men equally gross, averse to labor, wanton, and wild? Did not patrician and proletaire spring from the same clay? Then how happens it that, after so many centuries, and in spite of so many miracles of industry, science, and art, comfort and culture have ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... beautiful buildings and other evidences of Roman civilization. There seem to be vandals in almost every community, and sometimes they seem to be especially numerous in small communities, perhaps because of the lack of police protection. Sometimes vandalism is wanton,—that is, it results from an apparent love of being destructive. Most often it is purely thoughtless. Few people would knowingly injure the property of another if they would stop to think of their feelings if another should injure THEIR property. ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse themselves and other children, but their little trick may upset a freight train of conversation for the sake ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... flourishing under just laws, liberty grown wanton embroiled the city, and license relaxed the reins of ancient discipline. Upon this, the partisans of factions conspiring, Pisistratus the Tyrant[2] seized the citadel. When the Athenians were lamenting their sad servitude (not that he was cruel, but because every burden is grievous to those who ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... constitutional Government in the world present so portentous a monument of Parliamentary failure, so vivid an example of a moral and material ruin "paved with good intentions"? Therein lies the pathos of it. Not from malice, not from cruelty, not from wanton injustice, not even from callous indifference to suffering and wrong, does our misgovernment of Ireland come. If the evil had its root in deliberate wrong-doing on the part of England it would probably have been cured long ago. But each generation, ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... regulations for the sports and shows formerly held in the Middle Temple on Childermas Day, where he had his officers, a marshal, constable, butler, &c. See DUGDALE'S ORIGINES JURIDICIALES, p. 247.—Ray says, the interpretation of the word Cockney, is, a young person coaxed or conquered, made wanton; or a nestle cock, delicately bred and brought up, so as, when arrived a man's estate, to be unable to bear the least hardship. Whatever may be the origin of this appellation, we learn from the following verses, attributed to Hugh Bigot, ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... I sing, To profit wherewithal, Clip folly's wanton wing, And keep her within call: I've little else to give, What thou canst easy try, The lesson how to live, Is ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... table, apart from the revellers, but evidently listening with attention to all the news of the hour, sat a friar, gravely discussing a mighty tankard of huffcap, and ever and anon, as he lifted his head for the purpose of drinking, glancing a wanton eye at ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Phil. Backus, an auctioneer of considerable prominence in mercantile and social circles. Rod. Backus had shot dead a man whose face he had never seen until the moment before he shot him, a dozen paces distant. It was in Stout's alley. It was a murder, a wanton murder, without provocation, excuse, extenuation or palliation whatever. Rod. Backus was a frequent visitor at a house of the demi-monde in the alley, and one Jennie French was his favorite. As he came to visit her one evening, at dusk, she was standing in the doorway, at the ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... forced itself on their notice. They felt it might be a being partially benighted in the vale of ignorance, but it could not be one who would willingly devote his rich natural gifts to the purposes of wanton treachery. The ingenuous Alice gazed at his free air and proud carriage, as she would have looked upon some precious relic of the Grecian chisel, to which life had been imparted by the intervention of a miracle; while Heyward, though accustomed to see ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... these same ardent days of first true love the giant city exposed herself to my now enlightened eyes in all her disharmony. And I, who in wanton Paris had passed as an innocent child through a hotbed of sensuality and a hailstorm of seduction, on a single twilight eve in London had four or five encounters the particulars of which remained in my memory as barbed arrows remain imbedded in the flesh, ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... silence from a man unable for his life to utter a single word; and after pulling off all the bed-clothes, and then clothing you with curses, the ruffians, whose accent betrays them to be Irishmen, inflict upon you divers wanton wounds with a blunt instrument, probably a crow-bar—swearing by Satan and all his saints, that if you stir an inch of your body before daybreak, they will instantly return, cut your throat, knock out your brains, sack you, and carry you off for sale to a surgeon: Therefore ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... tavern spend the longest day, While others hawk and hunt the time away. Here one his mistress courts; another dances; A third incites to lust by wanton glances. This wastes the day in dressing; the other seeks To set fresh colours on her with red cheeks, That, when the sun declines, some dapper spark May take her to Spring Garden or the park. Plays some frequent, and balls; others their prime Consume at dice; ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... would not be surprised at anything happening in Garlock —where it would seem a wanton waste of imagination to look forward to anything happening—yet at about noon of the day that Harley P. Hennage looked over the rail fence into the feed corral at San Pasqual and discovered that Bob McGraw's ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... aside The veil upon thy brow! Who held the King and all his land To the wanton will of a harlot's hand! Will the white ash rise from the blistered brand? Stoop ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... with ocean in a summer mood. Hanging above the high, wide open door, It brings to us in quiet, firelit room, The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes, Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll, And seabirds scream in wanton happiness. ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... such is by no means their object; but, as the weaker Power in North America, Great Britain considers itself entitled to claim the use of the lakes as a military barrier."[394] The declaration of war by the United States was regarded by most Englishmen as a wanton endeavor to overthrow their immemorial right to the services of their seamen, wherever found; and consequently the invasion of Canada had been an iniquitous attempt to effect annexation under cover of an indefensible pretext. To guard against the renewal of such, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... unjustly enter into and invade the country of the Rohillas, and did there make war in a barbarous and inhuman manner, "by an abuse of victory," "by the unnecessary destruction of the country," "by a wanton display of violence and oppression, of inhumanity and cruelty," and "by the sudden expulsion and casting down of an whole race of people, to whom the slightest benevolence was denied." When prayer was made not to dishonor the Begum (a princess of great rank, whose husband had been killed in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... in the arbor this morning. Her light morning dress of softest texture fell in graceful folds about her exquisite form. She held a Book of Hours in her hand, but she had not once opened it since she sat down. Her dark eyes looked not soft, nor kindly, but bright, defiant, wanton, and even wicked in their expression, like the eyes of an Arab steed, whipped, spurred, and brought to a desperate leap—it may clear the wall before it, or may dash itself dead against the stones. Such was the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... deep love—on the men whether the relation into which marriage betrays them be decent or indecent. What I should like to be able to discover is—what provision does either man or civilization propose to make for the woman whom Fate, in wanton irony, reduces, even in marriage, to the self-considered level of ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... and hide their pride. Because they commit no sins of the flesh which can be noticed, they are full of piety in their outward ceremonies, but within full of arrogance. These are the members of the devil, for the devil neither eats, drinks, nor sleeps, he is neither a miser nor a wanton, but is within full of pride as are these. By the ass we are to understand the simple people. They are led in the way of sin by the ceremonies of the lazy, since they are not thought fit for the worship of the heart, and must be led by masses, penance, and indulgences, and they ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... unconfined wings hovers within my gates; And my divine Althea brings to whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair and fetter'd to her eye; The gods that wanton in the air, know no ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... on the 1st July came news of the terrible massacre of the Cawnpore garrison,—men, women and children slain in one wanton, heartless slaughter, which still makes the blood run ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... disgraced our foes during the last two years. The best elements in us rise in irrepressible repugnance before such pageants of wickedness as have clothed the famous name of Wittenberg with infamy and made the story of naval warfare a continuing record of wanton crime. No man can think, without shame, of the so-called civilisation and culture which could palliate such perversions of justice as those recalled by the fate of ...
— No. 4, Intersession: A Sermon Preached by the Rev. B. N. Michelson, - B.A. • B. N. Michelson
... of cruelty and wanton destruction abated I counted on being free to seek Fenice and my sister, but greatly to my disgust, I was constituted the warden of the Pope, who was confined a close prisoner in the castle ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... heart is torn, to think of the necessity so dear a creature is driven to of hiding herself! Devilish fellow! He must have been sportive and wanton in his inventions—yet that cruel, that savage sportiveness has saved you from the sudden violence to which he has had recourse in the violation of others, of names and families not contemptible. For such the villain always ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Lord said, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: in that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon, the chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers, the ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... praise of man naturally begins to praise himself. As a result of self-esteem arises (3) Censoriousness, since he who thinks well of himself is apt to think ill of others. As a system Pharisaism was wanton hypocrisy—a character of seeming righteousness, but too often of ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... government more consistent, it would mean war. I think that he has committed himself more openly and more unjustifiably than could have been expected, in the relation of the affair of the Little Belt, by accusing that poor little sloop of a wanton act of aggression by attacking a huge American frigate, when Commodore Rodgers himself admits that he was for nearly ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... life. These men deluged an Assiniboine Indian Camp with deadly whisky in return for every valuable thing the Indians had to trade. And when the Indian Camp was ablaze with the light of campfires and was a mad whirl of dancing drunkenness the miscreant traders from the South, in a spirit of utter wanton devilry, got under cover of a cut bank by the creek where the camp was, and proceeded to shoot the Indians who were defenceless in their orgy. A volley or two accounted for two score killed and many wounded, only a few escaping to the ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... it on purpose. I thought how good and sweet she was to that irritatingly silly old frump her mother, and wondered if it really were her mother, or only hired. I pictured her crown of gold-brown hair as I had last seen it with the sunlight kissing its wanton waves, and felt I would like to be quite sure that it were all ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... again treat me with harshness and severity? No,—never. I have often wondered why he manifested such unusual and wanton disregard of my feelings then, that one, only time. It is no matter now. It is a single ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... her a greater actress than a singer; and she had been advised to dispense with her voice and challenge a verdict on her speaking voice in one of Shakespeare's plays. Owen would have liked her to risk the adventure, but she dared not. It would seem a wanton insult to her voice. She had imagined that it might leave her as an offended spirit might leave its local habitation. Her Margaret had been accepted in Italy, so she must sing it as well as she acted it. But when she had asked the Marquis d'Albazzi if she sang it as ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... to us," said the one with the dagger. "For it was the vengeance of Heaven we were about to execute. Know that this is our sister, whom we have discovered to be a wanton creature, that must bring shame upon our learned house and into our God-fearing town. Whereupon we and her husband held a secret Beth-Din, and resolved, according to the spirit of our ancient Law, that this ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Emperor still insisted upon his most unjust demand, it would open the eyes of his country's representative to the situation and the true attitude of the German authorities. Besides, he was incensed at the wanton destruction of other people's property to satisfy the whims ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... witch of evil fame, And Petulengro it is their name; Within their tent each lass and youth Is a wanton or thief—I tell ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... George and Garter dangling from that bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies:—alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure and that soul of whim! Gallant and gay, in Claverdon's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love, Or, just as gay, at council in a ring Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King. No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, Then victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... the complaints of Iroquois cruelties have descended to us; but the same historians have not omitted to inform us that the first acquaintance of the Iroquois with triese colonists was through two most wanton and butcherly assaults which Champlain and his soldiers, in company with their Indian allies, made upon their unoffending neighbors. No milder epithets can justly describe these unprovoked invasions, in which the Iroquois bowmen, defending their homes, were shot down mercilessly with firearms, ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... But, alas! some wanton hand had pulled out the nails; and this person was none other then Juan's second brother. "I am a lost ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... to the eyes of Alain Chartier. His Livre de l'Esperance, where the oratorical prose is interspersed with lyric verse, spares neither the clergy nor the frivolous and dissolute gentry, who forget their duty to their country in wanton self-indulgence; yet his last word, written at the moment when Joan of Arc was leaving the pastures for battle, is one of hope. His Curial (The Courtier) is a satire on the vices of the court by one who had acquaintance with its corruption. The large, harmonious phrase of Alain Chartier ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... tradition upon that farm for years afterwards that these two Mormons, after receiving charity, had made an open display of that wanton wickedness which ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... twelve all was over, and "The Bower" stripped of every article of furniture or consumption for which the money was owing. And yet, to the honour of Troy, no single theft or act of wanton destruction was perpetrated. Save for the trampled flowers and marks of dusty boots upon the carpets, the house was left as it stood on the day when Mr. and Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys arrived. It should be mentioned, perhaps, that Seth Udy's little boy was detected with his fist in a jar of moist sugar; ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for the loftiest things. Others might say what they chose, she knew him better. This man, from the first hour of their meeting, had loved her with the most ardent but also with the holiest passion; never, never had he sought her merely for wanton amusement. Her mother's last wish would be fulfilled. She need only trust him with her whole soul, and leave the "forge fire of life" to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... superiority: "There is but one decision here, if the morality of this noble city is to be preserved and the maiden daughters of her patrician families secured henceforward from the misfortune of being a plaything for the wanton levity of reckless heart breakers. But this decision, on which I firmly and resolutely insist, as lady and princess, in the name of my whole sex and of all knightly men who, with me, prize the reverence and inviolable fidelity due a lady, is: Sir Heinz Schorlin ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the Teutons against the Entente Powers. A civilizing mute would deaden the resonance of bestial passion; and even private property—in especial that of Germany—would be safe from confiscation and wanton destruction, and when peace is restored the rich mercury mines of Italy will again belong to the Kaiser and his advisers. Last summer[30] a series of private meetings was held for three days running ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... much! but let th' "dank wynd" moan, "Shimmer th' woold" and "rive the wanton surge;" I ask not much; grant but an "eery drone," Some "wilding frondage" and a "bosky dirge;" Grant me but these, and add a regal flush Of "sundered hearts upreared upon a byre;" Throw in some yearnings and a "darksome hush," And—asking nothing more—I'll smite ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt you. Do you realise that women wear black evening dresses that have to be hooked up in a hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out of sheer wanton malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... sleeve, and he tore the fuse from his weapon, and flung the gun—too heavy to be of use to us longer—to the ground. It was done in a moment. While the mob swept over the barricade, and smashed the rich furniture of it in wanton malice, we filed aside, and nimbly slipped under it one by one. Then we hurried in single file to the end of the room, no one taking much notice of us. All were pressing on, intent on their prey. We gained the door as the butcher struck his first blow on ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... wilds and complain of the hard heart of that fair and ungrateful one, the end and limit of all human beauty! Oh, ye wood nymphs and dryads, that dwell in the thickets of the forest, so may the nimble wanton satyrs by whom ye are vainly wooed never disturb your sweet repose, help me to lament my hard fate or at least weary not at listening to it! Oh, Dulcinea del Toboso, day of my night, glory of my pain, guide of my path, star of my fortune, so may Heaven grant thee in full all thou seekest ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of red brick houses and terra cotta tiles, where every door is just like the one next to it and the whole place gives the impression of monotonous sameness relieved here and there by a shell-shattered roof, a symbol of sorrow and wanton destruction. In this place of an evening children may be seen out of doors listening for the coming of the German shells and counting the number that fall in the village. From our billets we went out to the trenches by Vermelles daily, and cut the grass from the trenches with reaping hooks. ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... phrase obscene. In fair and open dealing where's the shame? What nature dares to give, she dares to name. This honest fellow is sincere and plain, And justly gives the jealous husband pain. (Vain is the task to petticoats assign'd, If wanton language shows a naked mind.) And now and then, to grace her eloquence, An oath supplies the vacancies of sense. Hark! the shrill notes transpierce the yielding air, And teach the neighb'ring echoes how to swear. By Jove, is faint, and for ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... by the Governor-General of the Canadas to aid him in carrying into effect measures of retaliation against the inhabitants of United States for the wanton destruction committed by their army in Upper Canada, it has become imperiously my duty, in conformity with the Governor-General's application, to issue to the naval forces under my command an order to destroy and lay waste such towns and districts upon the ...
— The Star-Spangled Banner • John A. Carpenter
... foam-flakes from his mouth, or, kindlier task, With patient neck support the Belgian car. Then, broken at last, let swell their burly frame With fattening corn-mash, for, unbroke, they will With pride wax wanton, and, when caught, refuse Tough lash to brook or jagged curb obey. But no device so fortifies their power As love's blind stings of passion to forefend, Whether on steed or steer thy choice be set. Ay, therefore 'tis they banish bulls afar To solitary ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... with undergraduates, and usually had had the worst of it. At present, in the service of the blindfold goddess, these equitable men were no doubt taking out their vengeance for past favors. But under all this wanton display of violence, the gownsmen practised the severest forbearance. The pressure from behind made it impossible to forbear pressing ahead; crushed, you were obliged to crush; but, beyond that, there was no movement or gesture on our part to give any colorable warrant to the brutality of the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Was e'er a human mind, upon its lofty level, Conceived of by the like of thee? Yet hast thou food that brings satiety, Not satisfaction; gold that reftlessly, Like quicksilver, melts down within The hands; a game in which men never win; A maid that, hanging on my breast, Ogles a neighbor with her wanton glances; Of fame the glorious godlike zest, That like a short-lived meteor dances— Show me the fruit that, ere it's plucked, will rot, And trees from which new ...
— Faust • Goethe
... by the wishing-gate Nina's wanton desire to provoke to wrath the monster to whom she was chained died a sudden and unnatural death. She was scrupulously careful of his feelings from that day forward, and he treated her with a freezing courtesy, a cynical ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the Girl not quite so comely. They were both very young, and happened one day to be playing near the looking-glass, which stood on their mother's toilet. The Boy, pleased with the novelty of the thing, viewed himself for some time, and in a wanton, roguish manner observed to the Girl how handsome he was. She resented the insult, and ran immediately to her father, and, with a great deal of aggravation, complained of her brother, particularly for having acted so effeminate a part as to look in a glass, and meddle ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... it had exhausted itself and passed away by its own processes, no effort of mine could have overcome or banished it. I stalked apart, under its influence, a gloomy savage—scornful and sad—stern, yet suffering—denying myself equally, in the perverse and wanton denial to which I ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... could distinguish mutilated forms writhing in agony, while ever and anon one and another rose convulsively from out the mass, endeavoured to stagger towards the wood, and ere they had taken a few steps, fell and wallowed on the bloody sand. My blood curdled within me as I witnessed this frightful and wanton slaughter; but I had little time to think, for the captain's deep voice came again over the water towards us: "Pull ashore, lads, and fill your water-casks." The men obeyed in silence, and it seemed to me as if even their hard hearts were shocked ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... thundering. On both sides there was still a vigilant guard kept up; the sentinels bristled the walls of Baza with their lances, and the guards patrolled the Christian camp, but there was no sallying forth to skirmish nor any wanton violence ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... forgiven, the old man's continued disrespect to his daughter's memory, his refusal to join even in the simplest ceremony of devotion, kept both him and old Mata chilled and distant. The one possible explanation,—aside from that of wanton cruelty,—was a thing so marvellous, so terrible in implied suggestion, that the boy's faint soul could make for it no present home; let it drift, a great luminous nebula of hope, a little longer ...
— The Dragon Painter • Mary McNeil Fenollosa
... naval, rival of Italy in the Adriatic. The Italian delegates in private interviews showed great bitterness toward the Slavs, who, they declared, had, as Austrian subjects, waged war against Italy and taken part in the cruel and wanton acts attendant upon the invasion of the northern Italian provinces. They asserted that it was unjust to permit these people, by merely changing their allegiance after defeat, to escape punishment for the outrages which they had committed against Italians and actually to profit by being ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... of the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the burning of Washington, and a host of less remembered attendant evils. All these things might have been prevented by the timely maintenance of a navy of tolerable strength, deterring the warring powers from wanton outrage. ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... paper, no bitter expression passed his lips, but tears filled his eyes as he referred to the destruction of his place, that had been the cherished home of the father of the United States. He could forgive their cutting down his trees, their wanton conversion of his pleasure-grounds into a graveyard, but he could never forget their reckless plunder of all the camp equipment and other relics of General Washington ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... last thou art! Ere bud to rounded blossom change; Thou wilt for wanton lips and heart Most false, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... called, and the other was a guzzling German. They were slave- drivers. To begin with, they bought their labour from Johnny Be-blowed, the most notorious recruiter in the Solomons. He is working out a ten years' sentence in Fiji now, for the wanton killing of a black boy. During his last days here he had made himself so obnoxious that the natives on Malaita would have nothing to do with him. The only way he could get recruits was by hurrying to the spot whenever ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... evidence it would seem that this poem was called forth by the Earl's bounty to its author. "My muse devorst from deeper (the Rawl. MS. reads deepest) care, presents thee with a wanton elegie;" and further on, the dedication promises "better lines" which should "ere long" be penned in "honour" of his noble patron. This promise ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash
... only and at that period no other mutilation was practiced. It was a small lock not more than three inches square, which was carried only during the thirty days' celebration of a victory, and afterward given religious burial. Wanton cruelties and the more barbarous customs of war were greatly intensified with the coming of the white man, who brought with him fiery liquor and deadly weapons, aroused the Indian's worst passions, provoking in ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... E. translates in wanton mood. Toller-Bosw. does not recognize sorrow as one of the ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... another shadow flits, Which shows a bolder aspect than the gay Impassioned votaries of Nature wear. Mark his majestic port, his eagle eye, The stern erection of his haughty brow, Partially shaded by the snowy plumes That lightly wave and wanton in the breeze.— Is this a pensioner of hope?—Is this A dreamer of wild dreams?—All eyes are turned To gaze upon him, as with measured step The weaponed warrior slowly passes by.— Oh, this is one of War's tremendous sons, Glory's intrepid champion: ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies! Alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim, Gallant and gay in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, the lord of useless ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... With nature, did an arber greene dispred, Fram'd of wanton yvie flowing fayre, Through which the fragrant eglantines did ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... after many traverses of thoughts, is grown to know what he may trust to, and stands now equally armed for all events; that hath got the mastery at home, so as he can cross his will without a mutiny, and so please it that he makes it not a wanton; that in earthly things wishes no more than nature, in spiritual is ever graciously ambitious; that for his condition stands on his own feet, not needing to lean upon the great, and can so frame his thoughts to his estate that when he hath least he cannot want, because he is as ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... frozen flesh with snow, So Spring will not her time forerun, Mix polar night with tropic glow, Nor cloy us with unshaded sun, Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance, But she has the temperance Of the gods, whereof she is one,— Masks her treasury of heat Under east winds crossed with sleet. Plants and birds and humble creatures Well accept her rule austere; ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... toward "Cliefden's proud alcove, the bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love," we find ourselves in a luxuriant rolling country, rural and slumberous. Cookham parish, which we should traverse, claims quite loudly American kinship on the strength of its including an estate once the property ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... it without ruin and harm to the natural life. For, as has been said, in the practice of fasting, watching and labor, we are not to look upon the works in themselves, not on the days, not on the number, not on the food, but only on the wanton and lustful Adam, that through them he may be cured of his ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... side was intended when they left Rhodes, to wit, that the darkness and the comfort and the warmth of the bed, forces of no mean efficacy, did so prevail with them that dead Antioco was forgotten alike as lover and as friend, and by a common impulse they began to wanton together, insomuch that before they were arrived at Baffa, where the Cypriote resided, they were indeed man and wife. At Baffa the lady tarried with the merchant a good while, during which it so befell that a gentleman, Antigono ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... come anigh you?" he cried. "Hath she ventured to disquiet my friends, the wanton jade, the scheming—" and so on, pouring horrid words upon her that chilled my blood. 'T was terrible in him, that he could so swiftly change to these furies with one he had favoured, and to ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... to continue her narrative. I am convinced that nothing would more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity, or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just description of the condition into which the wanton plunges herself; and therefore hope that my letter may be a ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... kinds. I found a great crowd surrounding a party who were dancing, by the light of some large fires, to the music of four drums, which were beat with great exactness and uniformity. The dances, however, consisted more in wanton gestures than in muscular exertion or graceful attitudes. The ladies vied with each other in displaying the most voluptuous ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... the brutal spoliations which have come to light in the realm of high finance and big business are the natural fruit of such a manner of life as many of our recent novelists have vividly portrayed. And the wanton extravagance of the House of Mirth would not exist if the majority of the people did not admire it. The outcry against it is oftener the voice of envy than of moral revulsion. The cure for this evil, as of most others, is found in public opinion; ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... pointed out by the Minister of General Police. I was fortunate enough to keep my friend M. Moreau de Worms, deputy from the Youne, out of the fiat of exiles. This produced a mischievous effect. It bore a character of wanton severity quite inconsistent with the assurances of mildness and moderation given at St. Cloud on the 19th Brumaire. Cambaceres afterwards made a report, in which he represented that it was unnecessary for the maintenance of tranquillity to subject ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... was well; but, on the other hand, in Kendal, a town nearly twenty miles distant, of necessity I was but imperfectly known; and though there was a pretty general expression of disgust at the character of the publication, and the wanton malignity which it bore upon its front, since, true or not true, no shadow of a reason was pleaded for thus bringing forward statements expressly to injure me, or to make me unhappy; yet there must have been many, in so ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... to read this out some day, got up sprucely with a new toga, all in white, with your birthday ring on at last, perched up on a high seat, after gargling your supple throat by a liquid process of tuning, with a languishing roll of your wanton eye. At this you may see great brawny sons of Rome all in a quiver, losing all decency of gesture and command of voice, as the strains glide into their very bones, and the marrow within is tickled by the ripple ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... near it that of a new love, Annette, and afterward on finding the tree he shed tears, melted toward her, and made an idyl. He was also seized with a passion of teasing her and dominating over her devotedness with wanton and tyrannical caprice, venting upon her the ill humor of his disappointments, and grew absurdly jealous and lost her after she had borne with him with incredible patience and after terrible scenes with her ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... true repose, Wherein the wise contemplate heaven aright, In thee no dread of war or worldly foes, In thee no pomp seduceth mortal sight. In thee no wanton cares to win with words, Nor lurking ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... motives which do not accord with this determination. Some exclude the seeking of pleasure as a permissible motive, some the love of beauty; some insist upon one's "being oneself" and prohibit or limit responses to exterior opinions. Most of such selections strike me as wanton and hasty. I decline to dismiss any of my motives at all in that wholesale way. Just as I believe I am important in the scheme of things, so I believe are all my motives. Turning one's back on any set of them ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... There was a wanton light in her eyes. The change that had come over her was startling; and Lawler found himself watching her, trying to associate this new side of her character with that she had shown before she had ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Socorro, in New Mexico, has been the scene of a fearful tragedy. A band of desperadoes had gradually collected there, who indulged in the most wanton acts of outrage and barbarity, upon the Mexican residents, finally ending in more than one deliberate murder. A few members of the Boundary Commission who had been left there, headed an organization which captured a number of the gang, of whom three were tried and hung ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... cunning of the sharper. 3. As poverty waits upon the steps of indolence, so upon such poverty brood equivocations, subterfuges, lying denials. 4. Falsehood becomes the instrument of every plan. 5. Negligence of truth, next occasional falsehood, then wanton mendacity—these three strides traverse the whole ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... choose, to ignore, to punish. His to receive, not to seek; to dispense, not to stand waiting for his portion; his the freedom of the forbidden, of everything beyond him, of all withheld, denied by this bright, loose-robed, wanton-eyed goddess from whose invisible altar he had caught a whiff of sacrificial odours, standing there through the wintry years in the squalor and reek ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... fairest moulded of woman kind, Are gathered in groups on the level ice. They look on the robe and its beauty gladdens, And maddens their hearts for the splendid prize. Lo the rounded ankles and raven hair That floats at will on the wanton wind, And the round brown arms to the breezes bare, And breasts like the mounds where the waters meet, [4] And feet as fleet as the red deer's feet, And faces that glow like the full, round moon When she laughs in the luminous ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... that one could turn off at will, like gas or water in our houses. Only there were rather too many specifics in those days. For if one has "an excellent approved remedy" that never fails, it seems unnecessary to print a list of twenty others for the same purpose. This is wanton excess; it is gilding the golden pill, and throwing fresh ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... slowly up Grange Lane, steeling himself for the encounter, and trying to forgive aunt Dora in his heart. It was not very easy. Things might have turned out just the same without any interference—that was true; but to have it all brought on in this wanton manner by a kind foolish woman, who would wring her hands and gaze in your face, and want to know, Oh! did you think it was her fault? after she had precipitated the calamity, was very hard; and it was with a very gloomy countenance, accordingly, that the Curate of ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... her "claes" on the grass by the burn near the little stone bridge; the wild partridges whirring about in pairs; the farm-boy seated on the clean straw in the bottom of his cart, and cracking his whip in mere wanton joy at the sunshine; the pretty cottages, and the gardens with rows of currant and gooseberry bushes hanging thick with fruit that suggests jam and tart in every delicious globule. It is a love-colored ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... gods ere now, And Dardan Paris, have made the woods their home. Let Pallas keep the towers her hand hath built, Us before all things let the woods delight. The grim-eyed lioness pursues the wolf, The wolf the she-goat, the she-goat herself In wanton sport the flowering cytisus, And Corydon Alexis, each led on By their own longing. See, the ox comes home With plough up-tilted, and the shadows grow To twice their length with the departing sun, Yet me love burns, for who can limit love? Ah! Corydon, ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... feather, from thy wanton wing, Young God of dimples! in thy roguish flight; And let thy Poet catch it, now, to sing The beauty of the Dame who won ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... The power of removal from office belonged, Mr. Madison believed, rightfully to the chief magistrate, and, if by some unhappy chance the wrong man should find his way to that position and abuse the power intrusted to him, "the wanton removal of meritorious officers would," he said, "subject the President to impeachment and removal from ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... all—conscience, imagination, memory, will, intellect. How many a man listening to me now has his nature like the facade of some of our cathedrals, with the empty niches and broken statues proclaiming that wanton desecration and destruction have been ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank Reverted plays in undulating flow, There throw, nice-judging, the delusive fly; And as you lead it round in artful curve, With eye attentive mark the springing games Straight as above the surface of the flood They wanton rise, or urged by hunger leap, Then fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook: Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank, And to the shelving shore slow-dragging some, With various hand proportion'd to their force. If yet too ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... people all,' said he, 'this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it from me, if you like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, what's your name! Your father has absconded - deserted you - and you mustn't expect to see him again ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... no matter what the issue. Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... perfectly congenial to their usual habits, and perhaps feeling no remorse of conscience in departing from those principles which must always accompany men of education, carry into effect their scheme of wanton, atrocious, and deliberate falsehood. And accordingly, in pursuance of their infernal piece of villainy, one of them being sensible of being held in contempt and ridicule by an enlightened public—whose ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... in this matter by the same process of illogical reasoning of which, later, the Puritans were guilty when they banished music from the churches. In view of the fact that music was used to heighten the charms of wanton Roman festivities or Pagan rites, St. Jerome condemned the art itself, ignorant of the fact that music can never be immoral in itself, but only through evil associations. St. Augustine took a different view of music from St. Jerome. When he first heard the Christian chant at Milan he exclaimed: ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... more than sorrow—for it was remorse—it was never quite thrown off. It was not that her conscience reproached her for the fate of Dr. Grimshaw, which was brought on by his own wrongdoing, but Marian's fate—that a wild, wanton frolic of her own should have caused the early death of one so young, and beautiful, and good as Marian! that was the thought that nearly drove poor Jacquelina mad with remorse, whenever she realized ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... all, and glorious for evermore. The cruelty of the great would fain be feared; but who is to be feared but God alone, out of whose power what can be wrested or withdrawn? when, or where, or whither, or by whom? The tendernesses of the wanton would fain be counted love: yet is nothing more tender than Thy charity; nor is aught loved more healthfully than that Thy truth, bright and beautiful above all. Curiosity makes semblance of a desire of knowledge; ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... he had been telling to unlistening ears the tale of how the blacks had speared, in wanton mischief, a mob of two hundred cattle on Jinfalla, not fifteen miles from the home station, "old man, you see it would be just ruination to let this go on. Either they or we must clear out. We can't ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... instances Hazlitt was consciously the aggressor, but his attacks were never wanton. He denounced Wordsworth and Coleridge and Southey because they were renegades from the cause which lay nearest to his heart. Their apostasy was an unforgivable offence in his eyes, and his wrath was proportioned ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... beggar. Perhaps you thought I was playing the piano—yes, and teaching Rosie—for my amusement; perhaps you thought I sat up writing half the night out of—sleeplessness," he smiled at the phrase, "or a wanton desire to burn Mrs. Leadbatter's gas. No, Mary Ann, I have to get my own living by hard work—by good work if I can, by bad work if I must—but always by hard work. While you will have fifteen thousand pounds a year, I shall be glad, overjoyed, to get fifteen ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... so violently affect the Reputation of Wits, that not a French Journal, Mercury, Farce, or Opera, can escape their Pillaging: yet the utmost they arrive at, is but a sort of Jack-a-lanthorn Wit, that like the Sun-shine which wanton Boys with fragments of Looking-glass reflect in Men's Eyes, dazles the Weak-sighted, and troubles the strong. These are the Muses Black-Guard, that like those of our Camp, tho' they have no share in the Danger or Honour, yet have the greatest in the Plunder; that indifferently strip ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... D'Avenant. It being forbidden him in the rebellious times to act tragedies and comedies, because they contained some matter of scandal to those good people, who could more easily dispossess their lawful sovereign, than endure a wanton jest, he was forced to turn his thoughts another way, and to introduce the examples of moral virtue, writ in verse, and performed in recitative music. The original of this music, and of the scenes which adorned his work, he ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... at jeists. And wanton when he came to feists, He scorn'd the converse of great beasts, O'er a sheep's head; He laugh'd at stones ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... upon a tunne of wine, when the grapes hang shaking about his eares; but, since the catholike liquor is taken from him, he is much wasted, so that he hath looked very thin and ill of late; but the wanton women that are so mad after him, do not know how he is metamorphised, so that he is not now like himselfe, but rather ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... bringing her mistress with her. Ts'ui, this time, was languid and flushed, yielding and wanton in her air, as though her strength could scarcely support her limbs. Her former severity had ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... doubt at variance with the world; but it does seem to me, that many of these warfares by sea and land are the most unjust, wanton sacrifice of life and property, recorded in the annals of history. I know that there are times and occasions when it is necessary to do battle with foreign powers in self-defence, or to relieve the oppressed and defenceless of other nations; such was the glorious object of the battle ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... evoked, the poetry of the Pleiad has found its place. At first, with Malherbe, you may think it, like the architecture, the whole mode of life, the very dresses of that time, fantastic, faded, rococo. But if you look long enough to understand it, to conceive its sentiment, you will find that those wanton lines have a spirit guiding their caprices. For there is style there; one temper has shaped the whole; and everything that has style, that has been done as no other man or age could have done it, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... the craven in his presence, avenged himself as soon as he was gone by complaining of his having made a wanton attack upon him, and by making coarse comments upon ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... the woes of others, and even compassionates their weakness and wickedness. It will desire, therefore, as much as possible, to hide them from the public gaze, unless the good of others should require their exposure; and even then, will not do it with wanton feelings. But these remarks apply with much greater force to the practice of Christians speaking of one another's faults. Where is the heart that would not revolt at the idea of brothers and sisters scanning each other's faults, in the ears of strangers? Yet ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... difficult to distinguish one's self among the cross-breedings of the Mahes and the Floches. Rouget assuredly had an ancestor of fiery blood. As for Fouasse and Tupain, they were called thus without knowing why, many surnames having lost all rational meaning in course of time. Well, old Francoise, a wanton of eighty years who lived forever, had had Fouasse by a Mahe, then becoming a widow, she remarried with a Floche and brought forth Tupain. Hence the hatred of the two brothers, made specially lively by the question of inheritance. At the Rouget's they beat each ...
— The Fete At Coqueville - 1907 • Emile Zola
... my certie, I shall ghaist them—if they had their heads as muckle on their wark as on their daffing they wad play na sic pliskies—it's the wanton steed that scaurs at the windlestrae. Ghaists! wha e'er heard of ghaists in an honest house!"—St ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper man whose ambitions pleased her fancy and whose ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... round them only breathe: Yet ruined splendour still is lingering there. And yonder towers the prince's palace fair: There thou, too, Vathek! England's wealthiest son, Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... majority of Americans are so accustomed to consider their own expansion across the continent, and beyond, as one of the finest episodes in the march of human progress (as it is) and the growth of the British Empire as a mere succession of wanton and brutal outrages on helpless and benighted peoples, that the immediate impulse of the vast majority of American readers will be to treat a comparison between the two with ridicule. Minnesota Massacres ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... arrived when a continued severity could only defeat its own work. He felt that the country could not be rendered more abject, the spirit of patriotism more apparently extinct. A show of clemency, which would now cost nothing, and would mean nothing, might be more effective than this profuse and wanton bloodshed. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... her his wife. Why not? Although there was a flaw in it, his rank was high, and therefore she was beneath him; but for this her loveliness would atone, and she had wit and learning enough to fill any place that he could give her. Also, great as was his wealth, his wanton, spendthrift way of life had brought him many debts, and she was the only child of one of the richest merchants in England, whose dower, doubtless, would be a fortune that many a royal princess might ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... opinion, as is the fact that such legislation has already been enacted in two states, which are only now putting into action the recommendation made centuries ago by such social philosophers as Plato and Sir Thomas More. A sense of justice outraged by the wanton destruction of new-born children, may in time unite with that ardent tide of rising enthusiasm for the nurture of the young, until the old barriers of silence and inaction, behind which the social evil has so long intrenched itself, shall ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... enters Palamon The gate of Venus, and the rising Sun; Waved by the wanton winds, his banner flies, All maiden white, and shares the people's eyes. From east to west, look all the world around, Two troops so match'd were never to be found; Such bodies built for strength, of equal age, In stature sized; so proud in equipage: ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Nature plays that wanton game And Nature's hierophants may smile, Contented with their lore; no blame To rhymers if they ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... improvident recklessness, sometimes killing hundreds of them merely for the sake of the sport, the tongues, and the marrow bones. In the bloody hunt described in the last chapter, however, the slaughter of so many was not wanton, because the village that had to be supplied with food was large, and, just previous to the hunt, they had been living on somewhat reduced allowance. Even the blackbirds shot by the brown-bodied urchins before mentioned had been thankfully put into the pot. Thus ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... however, as an average illustration of life in that age of England. The five hundred years before the Conquest do not equal, in the bloody character of their annals, the like period succeeding it. Barbarous enough the Anglo-Saxons were, but wanton cruelty does not seem to have been one of their traits. To produce it some access of religious fury was usually requisite. It was on the church doors that the skins of their Danish ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... bent, my lyttyl wanton eye, My fedders freshe as is the emrawde grene, About my neck a cyrculet lyke the ryche rubye My lyttyl leggys, my feet both fete and clene, I am a mynyon to wayt uppon a quene; My proper parrot my lyttyl prety foole, With ladyes I lerne and go with ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... travelled, the sailor died; and they came at last through innumerable hardships to the Kimash Hills, the hills of the Mighty Men, and there they stayed. It was not an evil land; it had neither deadly cold in winter nor wanton heat in summer. But they never saw a human face, and everything was lonely and spectral. For a time they strove to go eastwards or southwards but the mountains were impassable, and in the north and west there was no hope. Though the buffalo ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the case of the cuckoo to the instinctive love of their offspring observable in almost all birds! After the eggs are laid the parent bird has no further trouble with them; no period of incubation to bare the breast of the brooding bird; no anxiety about her young ones, as some idle, wanton lad hunts amongst the trees and bushes, destroys both nest and eggs, or tortures the helpless fledglings! "But, papa," said Willy, "how does it happen that the young birds hatched in the same nest with the young cuckoo always get turned ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... its dense timber, feverishly disembowelled, and was now become a bald protuberance strewn with gravel and clay. The whole scene had that strange, repellent ugliness that goes with breaking up and throwing into disorder what has been sanctified as final, and belongs, in particular, to the wanton disturbing of earth's gracious, green-spread crust. In the pre-golden era this wide valley, lying open to sun and wind, had been a lovely grassland, ringed by a circlet of wooded hills; beyond these, by a belt of virgin forest. A limpid river and more than ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... reached the precious cluster, Five bold sparrows pertly stood, Pecking at the grapes beside them, Chattering in a wanton mood. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... different from what Campbell had expected, for Le Succes of fifty guns appeared in sight; and, after a desperate engagement with her, in which Walsingham was severely wounded, and every other officer on board killed or wounded, Walsingham saw that nothing was left but to make a wanton sacrifice of the remainder of his crew, or ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... "scent the morning air"! How they leave in our hearts nought but the dim consciousness that we are capable of an existence ineffably deeper and vaster than that which we lead in the visible world! Nought but this? Alas, poor human nature! do we leave the casket of Pandora open in wanton carelessness, and let all escape but the mere scent of the roses? Or does there not remain, behind an indefinable presence to comfort and console us,—the precious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... and he gazed at her befuddled. His illogical belief in her guilt was illogically converted to a profound conviction of her innocence. The wanton whom he had accused was metamorphosed into a slandered angel who would not, could not sin. In his eyes she was ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... some unexampled gale might make them seem to shine with such a movement in the veritable sky; yet nothing but deep water, seeming still in its incessant flight and rebound, could really show such altered stars. The flood lets a constellation fly, as Juliet's "wanton" with a tethered bird, only to pluck it home again. At moments some rhythmic flux of the water seems about to leave the darkly- set, widely-spaced Bear absolutely at large, to dismiss the great stars, and refuse to imitate the skies, and all the water ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... mentioned in the records of the Inns of Court, the most magnificent and costly was the famous Anti-Prynne demonstration, by which the lawyers endeavored to show their contemptuous disapproval of a work that inveighed against the licentiousness of the stage, and preferred a charge of wanton levity against those who encouraged ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... a husband, who consents to take back his wife twice over, spite of her wanton love for a ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... employed by Ragon, perfumer on rue Saint-Honore, Paris, towards the end of the eighteenth century; about 1793 she took in hand the amorous education of Cesar Birotteau, the little Tourraine peasant just employed by the Ragons as errand-boy. Ill-natured, wanton, wheedling, dishonest, selfish and given to drink, Ursule did not suit the candid Cesar, whom she abandoned, moreover, two years later, for a young Picardie rebel, who owned a few acres of land. He found concealment in Paris, and let her marry ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... gopher is only a little bigger than a chipmunk, and usually pokes nothing more than his head out of his hole, so when I got thirteen out of fifteen shots I began to feel that I was a sharp-shooter. But don't regard this as wanton cruelty, for the gopher is worse than a rat, and in this country the government agents supply homesteaders with an annual allowance of free strychnine to ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... as much of her as I said I did," cried the boy, "why don't you believe me when I assure you that she loved you? What more should you demand? I meant everything I said, and more—your wife was nothing but a licensed wanton, and you knew it! You ask me who and what I am—so long as she loved you, who are you, and what are you, to ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... white stuff" that was a nuisance among folks, and sell it for something he could put in his pocket. In this way Romescos accumulated several hundred dollars; but avarice increased, and with it his ferocity. It belonged to the trade, a trade of wanton depravity. He became the terror of those who assumed to look upon a negro's sufferings with sympathy, scoffing at the finer feelings of mankind. Twice had his rapacity been let loose-twice had it nearly brought him to the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... is continual spring, and harvest there Continuall, both meeting at one tyme: For both the boughes doe laughing blossoms beare. And with fresh colours decke the wanton pryme, And eke attonce the heavy trees they clyme, Which seeme to labour under their fruites lode: The whiles the ioyous birdes make their pastyme Emongst the shady leaves, their sweet abode, And their trew loves ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... be sorry to think that Bob Bangs was influenced by sheer spite and cruelty of heart, or by a wanton delight in witnessing and contributing to the suffering of others; yet so one was often forced to believe. It is bad enough when one fellow stands by and, without lifting a finger to help, lets another suffer; but ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... the way, is to blame for much wanton destruction. Young hemlocks, from four to six inches in diameter, are felled, stripped of their bark, and left cumbering the ground, to invite fire and to make of the woods an unkempt cemetery. The fall of a tree from natural ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... Thine unknown will. In nets' default, Finch-like me seem'd thou might'st be ta'en with salt; And here—and how thou mad'st me start!— Thou art.' 'O Mortal, by Immortals' cunning led, Who shew'd you how for Gods to bait your bed? Ah, Psyche, guess'd you nought I craved but to be caught? Wanton, it was not you, But I that did so passionately sue; And for your beauty, not unscath'd, I fought With Hades, ere I own'd in you a thought!' 'O, heavenly Lover true, Is this thy mouth upon my forehead press'd? Are these thine arms about my bosom link'd? Are these thy hands that tremble ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... refined old clergyman to Miss Norah Hood, he found himself shaking hands with a grave young person of unassertive beauty. Hers was the loveliness of the violet, which is apt to pall in this modern day—to aggravate, and to suggest wanton waste. For feminine loveliness is on the wane— marred, like many other good things, by over-education. Norah Hood was a typical country parson's daughter, who knew the right and did it, ignored the wrong and ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... see my lady's hair Coiled low like Clytie's—with no wanton curl.' But I, like any silly, wilful girl, Said, 'Donald likes it high,' and ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... of gallantry and courtship, specimens are these,—"With your ambrosiac kisses bathe my lips;" "You are a white enchantress, lady, and can enchain me with a smile;" "Midnight would blush at this;" "You walk in artificial clouds and bathe your silken limbs in wanton dalliance." What could Milton do, so far as such a production came within his knowledge, but shake his head and mingle smiles with a frown? Clearly the elder nephew too had slipped the Miltonic restraints. He had ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Herod of wanton flesh, degenerate victim of the sensuous filth and fermentation of self-indulgence, is ever striving to exile and suppress, from the wilderness of sin, the warning cry of the Nazarite voice by intriguing with the cunning, ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... man was composed was only fused into greater firmness by being subjected to such fiery tests. On leaving Trinidad, this eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he had loved and worked for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and belongings of the inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; the means by which honest and laborious industry could, through agriculture, benefit both itself and the general revenue. He also left an educational system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway to knowledge, to [62] distinction, ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... whileom heard the Romaine state, And Quirinus, whose strong puissant arme, Did shild the tops and turrets of proud Rome, Do now conspire to wracke the gallant Ship, Euen in the harbor of her wished greatnesse. And her gay streamers, and faire wauering sayles, With which the wanton wind was wont to play, To drowne with Billows of ...
— The Tragedy Of Caesar's Revenge • Anonymous
... nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white whale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... do not know the meaning of your words, madame.' His calmness only served to madden Frau von Graevenitz further. She turned away from him, and seizing Wilhelmine roughly by the shoulder, she hissed in her ear: 'Give me the letter, you wanton!' Wilhelmine started violently, and Monsieur Gabriel made a step forward, as though to defend her; his face flushed deeply, and he said in a steady voice: 'Madame de Graevenitz, such an accusation, even from a mother's lips, is a thing to which no woman has the right to submit.' But ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... anything that they did not want to eat. To be sure, they gave themselves a wide range; they were willing to eat almost anything that they could shoot, even blackbirds, which were so abundant and so easy to shoot. But there were some things which they would have thought it not only wanton but wicked to kill, like turtle-doves, which they somehow believed were sacred, nor robins either, because robins were hallowed by poetry, and they kept about the house, and were almost tame, so that it seemed a shame to shoot them. They ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells
... the question was addressed, straightened his stout form, and held up a number of flannel shirts, which he was taking to the mines on a venture. They had been cut with knives in the most wanton manner, and hardly a square ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... had they settled near the bank, than they were seized upon by a Fisherman, (who was lying in wait for them,) and completely plucked of their feathers, an operation to which they very quietly submitted, and were then suffered to depart. Upon inquiring his motive for what appeared to me a wanton act of cruelty, he told me his intention was to stuff his bed with the feathers; 'or,' added he, 'if you vill, to feather my nest.' Being myself an admirer of a soft bed, I saw no reason why I should not employ myself in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... I sung of the Giants, and the victorious thunderbolts scattered over the Phlegraean plains.[24] Now is there occasion for a softer lyre; and let us sing of youths beloved by the Gods above, and of girls surprised by unlawful flames, who, by their wanton desires, have ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... natural for Twirling-stick Mike to repent him suddenly of his wanton cruelty. The scoffing words of the dwarf rang in his ears, and he felt by no means easy. To make what amends he might to the deceased, he had him sumptuously buried at his own expense, with funeral oration, psalms, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... the desert Are born by the simoon's wrath, And in wanton and fleet confusion, Are strewn on its trackless path; So our lives with resistless fury, Insensibly and unknown, With a restless vacillation By the winds of fate are blown; But an All-Wise Hand May have changed the sand, For a purpose ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... that they were all young, and that none of them might be called ungoodly, and some were full fair. They were bright and fine of array. Most bore gold and gems on fingers and neck and arms; they were clad in light, or it may be said wanton raiment of diverse colours, which had only this of their fashion in common, that they none of them hid over-much of their bare bodies; for either the silk slipped from the shoulder of her, or danced away from her flank; and she ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... moral man in the presence of the "brazen" woman lies in the threat to his purposes of respectability and faithfulness; he is angered that this creature can arouse a conflict in him. The bitterness of the "saint" against the wanton originates in the ease with which she tempts him, and his natural conclusion is that the fault lies with her and not with his own passions. The respectable woman inveigles against her more untrammeled sister, not so much through her concern for morality, as through the anger felt against an ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... green slope before us, glowing warm, Came Alfred, tugging at his mother's arm; Willing she seem'd, but he still led the way, She had not walk'd so fast for many a day; His hand was lifted, and his brow was bare, For now no clust'ring ringlets wanton'd there, He threw them back in anger and in spleen, And shouted "Jennet" o'er the daisied green. Boyish impatience strove with manly grace In ev'ry line and feature of his face; His claim appear'd resistless as his choice, And when he caught the sound of Jennet's ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... therein; for a compliance will discommend me to Mr. Coventry, and a discompliance to my Lord Chancellor. But I think to let it alone, or at least meddle in it as little more as I can. From thence walked toward Westminster, and being in an idle and wanton humour, walked through Fleet Alley, and there stood a most pretty wench at one of the doors, so I took a turn or two, but what by sense of honour and conscience I would not go in, but much against my will took coach and away, and away to Westminster Hall, and there 'light of Mrs. Lane, and plotted ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
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