"Frivolity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his delight in the frivolity of the gods; but it is astounding how he can also give them dignity again. This amazing ability to raise one's self again, ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... what he needs very badly. Change! Oh, if everybody could have that when they need it! How it does make lives over! I know—how I do know! It's the deadly monotony that kills. Jean will bloom under the old farmhouse roof, away from all the fuss and frivolity she's so ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... than others—of changing their hues in order to match the gravel of the stream in which they swim or the leaves of the trees on which they feed. That is like what a great many of us do. Put us into a place where certain forms of frivolity or vice are common, and we go in for them. Take us away from these and we change our hue to something a little whiter. But all through we never know what it is to put forth a good solid force of resistance and to say, 'No! I will not!' or, what is sometimes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... Loftus's first season in London since her second marriage with Mr. Doll Loftus. After a very brief sojourn in that city of frivolity she had the acumen to discover that London society was hopelessly worldly and mercenary; that people only met to eat and to abuse each other; that the law of cutlet for cutlet was universal; that young men, especially those in the Guards, were garrisoned by a full complement of devils; that ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... her absorbed in prolonged musings; the less clairvoyant among them would jestingly ask her what she was thinking about, as if a young wife would think of nothing but frivolity, as if there were not almost always a depth of seriousness in a mother's thoughts. Unhappiness, like great happiness, induces dreaming. Sometimes as Julie played with her little Helene, she would gaze darkly at her, giving no reply to the childish ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... moment. He was resigned to his fate; he even wished to die. Her simple child-like letter had done more to reconcile him to his doom than the pious lectures of the good priest, and his own deep reflections on the subject. The madness of all human pursuits—the vanity and frivolity of life—now awoke in his breast sensations of pity and disgust. But love and friendship—those drops of honey in the cup of gall—did not their sweetness in this hour of desolation atone for the bitter dregs, and hold him to earth? ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... followed close upon that of the political power of Spain. The splendid empire of Charles V had sunk, from causes inherent in the policies of that over-ambitious monarch, through the somber bigotry of Philip II, the ineptitude of Philip III, the frivolity of Philip IV, to the imbecility of Charles II; and the death of the last of the Hapsburg rulers in 1700 left Spain in a deplorably enfeebled condition physically and intellectually. The War of the Succession (1701-1714) exhausted ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... of Alfieri, there was another motive at work—a determination to prove to the world that he was the master of his own temperament, and that, if he chose, he could cast away frivolity and cynicism, and clothe himself with austerity "as with a garment." He had been taken to task for "treating well-nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices" (Blackwood's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... centuries are as nothing; the strange garb and the stranger mental and spiritual dress fade, and we have here a mere woman, affected, as every true sister of hers to-day would be, by the helpless wailing. God has put that instinct there. Alas that it ever should be choked by frivolity or pride, and frozen by indifference and self-indulgence! Gentle souls spring up in unfavourable soil. Rameses was a strange father for such a daughter. How came this dove in the vulture's cage? Her sweet ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... affirm the contrary," said Eve, "for frivolity and pleasure are only too closely associated in ordinary minds. The number of those who prize the elegancies of life, for their intrinsic value, is every where small, I should think; and I question if Europe is much better off ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the nation's prestige, to carry on its glorious traditions? The list is but a poor one. Marino, Tassoni, the younger Buonarroti, Boccalini and Chiabrera in literature. The Bolognese Academy in painting. After these men expand arid wildernesses of the Sei Cento—barocco architecture, false taste, frivolity, grimace, affectation—Jesuitry translated into culture. On one bright point, indeed, the eye rests with hope and comfort. Palestrina, when he died in 1594, did not close but opened an age for music. His posterity, those composers, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... beyond my power," she cried, "to do justice to her vanity and frivolity. No one ever before accused me of being ill-natured, or censorious; but that woman is the vainest person I ever saw. Did you notice, my dear Mrs. F., that she changed her dress three times yesterday, and twice to-day? She knelt a whole hour before ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... and his merry humour and handsome, manly figure, backed up by the best letters of introduction, made him a general favourite. Polite society had a peculiar phraseology in those days. Rudeness used to be called frankness; bad language, originality; violence, manliness; and frivolity, nonchalance. To Mike, therefore, was attributed a whole host of good qualities, and the only alteration required of him was that he should wear an attila instead of a mente. He was a gentleman by birth, and that was enough. Every one admired, not his mind, indeed—they troubled themselves ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Ministers going somewhere else; why kaisers affect to review troops here, that they may be able to talk statecraft there; how princely compacts and contracts of marriage are made at sulphur springs; all these and such like leaked out as small-talk with a young and pretty woman, whose frivolity of manner went bail for the safety of the confidence, and went far to persuade Walpole, that though bank-stock might be a surer investment, there were paying qualities in certain women that in the end promised larger returns than mere money and higher ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... by and eighteenth century frivolity and worldliness took the place of Puritan sobriety and religion, New England children shared with their elders in that growing love of amusement, which found but few and inadequate methods of expression in the lives of either old or young. In the year 1771 there was sent ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... frivolous, for we were pretty stanch in our Presbyterianism there. I think our love for Dr. Hemingway in itself would have kept the Sabbath sacred. He never found fault with our Sunday visiting. All days were holy to him, and his evening sermons taught us that frivolity, and idle gossip, and scandal are as unforgivable on week days as on the Sabbath Day. Somewhere in the wide courts of heaven there must be reserved an abode of inconceivable joy and peace for such men as he, men who preach ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... she said, bitterly, "and yet you are always in chains—in the chains of your debts, your love-affairs, and your frivolity. Oh, listen to me—heed my words for once. They are as solemn as though they were uttered on a death-bed, for we shall never see each other again. Fancy a mother were speaking to you—a mother tenderly loving you. For I confess to you that I still love you, Gentz—my heart ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... said; and, though he might be criticised for frivolity in certain respects, no one could justly accuse him or even suspect him of any really unworthy action. Musadieu, surprised and embarrassed, defended himself, tried to explain and to ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... and mourning, appeared indifference, frivolity, and mirth; this being considered, especially by the females, as conducive to health. Seldom was the body followed by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and sextons, hirelings of the lowest of the populace ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... whether their coming to this place be but the whim of a moment, or a plan for a longer stay: if the latter, farewell, solitude! farewell, study!—farewell!—Yes, I must make room for gaiety, and mere frivolity. Yet could I willingly submit to all; but, should the Countess give me new proofs of her attachment, perhaps of her respect, Oh! how will my conscience upbraid me! Or—I shudder at the thought! if this seat be visited by company, and chance ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... packet into the escritoire; and this circumstance was alone sufficient to arouse my suspicion. Desmarais bared his breast gracefully to the magistrate. "Would a man, Sir," he said, "a man of my youth, suffer such a scar as that, if he could help it?" The magistrate laughed: frivolity is often a rogue's best policy, if he did but know it. One finds it very difficult to think a coxcomb can commit robbery and murder. Howbeit Desmarais came off triumphantly; and immediately after this examination, which had been his second ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... man's soul to answer for its life. Dark spiritual forces shriek their battle-cries over the din of matter. The swiftness of progress, crushing and enriching, the mad greed for gold, the worship of success—a success that sneers at duty, honour, love and patriotism—the filth and frivolity of our upper strata, the growth of hate and envy below, the restlessness of the masses, the waning of faith, the growth of despair, the triumph of brute force, the reign of the liar and huckster—all these are more real ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... was alone! Again, in his 'Joan of Arc', Mark Twain erected a monument of enduring beauty to that simple maid of Orleans, to whom the Roman Catholic Church has just now paid the merited yet tardy tribute of canonization. It is a sad commentary upon the popular attitude of frivolity towards the professional humorist that Mark Twain felt compelled to publish this book anonymously, in order that the truth and beauty of that magic story might receive its just meed of respectful ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... described. In spite of Sulla's colonies the ruin of the country must have been vastly accelerated by his civil wars and those which followed them. And, while the honest country class was dying out, the town class was ever plunging deeper into frivolity and voluptuousness. To defray the cost of the sumptuous life of the capital the fashionable spendthrift was forced to resort to extortion in the provinces, which, as we have seen, became so crying an evil that a permanent court existed for dealing with it before the time of Sulla. The greedy ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... same eyes of deep blue, and the generous but well-formed mouth. A man may pity, but cannot conceive the heroism that a woman of such a mould must have gone through who has been married since early girlhood to a man like Mr. Manners. Some women would have been driven quickly to frivolity, and worse, but this one had struggled year after year to maintain an outward serenity to a critical world, and had succeeded, tho' success had cost her dear. Each trial had deepened a line of that face, had done its share to subdue the voice which had once ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... composition, now imminent, with the powers that be; but he should bestir himself to withstand the pressure exerted by Giles, by Medora herself, by Bond, by mischievous Clytie Summers, by the whole idle horde of studio loungers to force him into such an atmosphere of frivolity, license and dissipation as could not but inwrap one of those ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... mediaeval system of punishment. Evidently the tribe always entertained extreme views regarding the relation of the two sexes toward each other, or else the spirit of the new law would never have been imbibed so eagerly. "The slightest want of modesty or exhibition of frivolity is sufficient reason for a husband to leave his wife, and for young women never to marry," says Padre Juan Fonte, of the Tepehuane Indians. There is no sign of relaxation in their strictness, or of any inclination to adopt more modern views on ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... successful in most things he undertook, though he seems to have been incapable of remaining constant to anything for long. As a business man he wasted his capital, and even in the execution of his crimes he showed frivolity and incoherence. At Lyons, he hired a carriage, in which he placed the corpse of Gouffre and after driving about the streets with Gabrielle Bompard like a madman, left the body of his victim in a spot near which ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... them she would learn every item of intelligence, and that, he made no doubt, with a due amplification of all the details. The crisis of the whole affair was reached when one day the young lawyer suddenly set off on a journey along with the lady, nobody knew whither. "That's the way frivolity goes on; the forward young gentleman will lose his business," said the knowing ones. But this was not the case; for not a little to the astonishment of the public, old Eichheimer himself attended to his foster-son's ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... must reckon sluggishness of mind and old age; and also the opposites of these, restlessness and disturbance of mind, also excessive self-esteem and pride in the very things for which a man ought to be despised. I need not mention obstinate persistence in wrong-doing, or frivolity which cannot remain constant to one point; besides all this, there is headlong rashness, there is timidity which never gives us trustworthy counsel, and the numberless errors with which we struggle, the rashness of the most cowardly, the quarrels of our best friends, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... receptivity; Stoicism at Rome; its influence on the lawyers; Sulpicius Rufus, his life and work; Epicureanism, its general effect on society; case of Calpurnius Piso; pursuit of pleasure and neglect of duty; senatorial duties neglected; frivolity of the younger public men; example of M. Caelius Rufus; sketch of his life and character; life of the Forum as seen in the letters ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... body that has felt it right to separate itself from Christendom because it cannot believe in the morality of wearing buttons. I do not know how the schism arose; but it is easy to suppose, for the sake of argument, that there had originally existed some Puritan body which condemned the frivolity of ribbons though not of buttons. I was going to say of badges but not buttons; but on reflection I cannot bring myself to believe that any American, however insane, would object to wearing badges. But the point is that as the holy spirit ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... them any further? Can I tell how the miserable man, cringing at the feet of that pure woman, narrated his dreary history of folly, extravagance, and dishonor? Need it be said that, through all his dissipation, frivolity, and crime, his gentle sister clung to him, and, smiling through her tears, bade him go and sin no more? She stole upon him like a shadow in the night, and, her labor of love ended, faded away. No entreaty of the generous diamond-dealer dissuaded her; no apology of the detective ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... society from the elaborate and spectacular world of Versailles to the more intimate atmosphere of the drawing-rooms of Paris. With the death of the old king the ceremonial life of the Court fell into the background; and the spirits of the time flew off into frivolity with a sense of freedom and relief. But there was another influence at work. Paradoxical as it may sound, it was the very seriousness of the new writers which was the real cause of their lack of decorum. Their great object was to be ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... Their excessive frivolity is perhaps even more remarkable than their gaiety; they have not sufficient steadiness for the uninterrupted avocations of graver life. In the midst of the most serious or deep discussion, a Frenchman ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... can feel the noble style of these buffo airs; they have neither the superabundant frivolity of Italian music nor the vulgar accent of French commonplace; rather have they the majesty of Olympus. There is the bitter laughter of a divine being mocking the surprise of a troubadour Don-Juanizing himself. But for this dignity we should be too suddenly ...
— Gambara • Honore de Balzac
... an incident that occurred during the winter of 1862-3, when a good deal of clamor was raised over a party given by Mrs. Lincoln, at which, it was asserted, dancing was indulged in; and Mrs. Lincoln was severely censured for what was regarded as inexcusable frivolity. Hon. A.G. Riddle, who was present on the occasion referred to, states positively that there was no dancing; the party was a quiet one, intended only to relieve the rather dull and formal receptions. But the President was pained by the rumors that "fashionable balls" were permitted ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... far beyond her size as were her aspirations, it was a free and running commentary of scorn at all created things extant, with ironical and sardonic additions that were terrible. It reviled all human endeavor, it quenched all sentiment, it suspended frivolity, it scattered reverie, it paralyzed action. It was omnipotent. More wonderful and characteristic than all, the very existence of this tremendous organ was unknown to the camp for six months after the arrival of its modest owner, and only revealed to them ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... and at on time a Mason himself, says: "I believe no ordinary brother will say that the occupations of the lodges are anything better than frivolous, very frivolous indeed. The distribution of charity needs to be no secret, and it is but a small part of the employment of the meeting. Mere frivolity can never occupy men come to age, and accordingly we see in every part of Europe where Freemasonry has been established the lodges have become ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... was perturbed. "For this is an awkward thing, and Tiburce has played me an unworthy trick. He never did know when to leave off joking; but such posthumous frivolity is past endurance. For, see now, in what a pickle it has landed me! I have outlived my friends, I may encounter difficulty in regaining my fiefs, and certainly I have lost the fairest wife man ever had. Oh, can it be, madame, that ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... delighting in his clothes, unhappy if he were deprived of his bottle and his game. Haggart, on the other hand, was before all things sealed to his profession. He would have deserted the gayest masquerade, had he ever strayed into so light a frivolity, for the chance of lightening a pocket. He tasted but few amusements without the limits of his craft, and he preserved unto the end a touch of that dour character which is the heritage of his race. But, withal, he was an amiable decent body, who ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... fierce resentment which rankled in his heart only waited its time to burst forth upon the man who had laboured to make impurity attractive. [43] Meanwhile Ovid attempted, two years later, a sort of recantation in the Remedia Amoris, the frivolity of which, however, renders it as immoral as its predecessor though less gross; and he finished his treatment of the subject with the Medicamina Faciei, a sparkling and caustic quasi-didactic treatise, of which only a fragment survives. [44] During ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... two-months'-old corpse,[357] and one or two other somewhat more veiled but equally or more audacious touches of realism—anything resembling the exaggerated horrors of such efforts of 1830 itself as Janin's own Ane Mort and part of Borel's Champavert. In her splendour as in her misery, in her frivolity as in her devotion and self-sacrifice, repulsive as this contrast may conventionally be, Marguerite is never impossible or unnatural. Her chief companion of her own sex, Prudence Duvernoy, though, as might be expected, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... exercises regularly, without ostentation and without weakness. "How many times he has stopped me at night," he writes, "as I passed near his bed! He wanted a quiet conscience, without reproach. His usual frivolity left him at the door of the chapel. He believed in the presence of God in this holy place and respected it.... His Christian sentiments were to be a sustaining power in his aerial battles, and he would fight ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... commercial spirit; in Italy, to the love of the arts that may be the expression of a society, but by which no society can entirely exist; in Germany, feudal class distinctions would be fostered; and here, in France, popular legislation would promote the spirit of frivolity, the sudden craze for an idea, and the readiness to split into factions which ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... and aisle and colonnade, of cupola and facade and pediment, of spire and vault, the architect translates emotion, vague perhaps but deep, mute but unmistakable. When we say that a building is sublime or graceful, frivolous or stern, we mean that sublimity or grace, frivolity or sternness, is inherent in it. The emotions connected with these qualities are inspired in us when we contemplate it, and are presented to us by its form. Whether the architect deliberately aimed at the sublime or graceful—whether ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... large town—in fact, any civilized centre—since she crossed the plains three years ago. Her girlish curiosity was quite touching, and her innocence irresistible. In fact, in a country whose tendency was to produce "frivolity and forwardness in young girls, he found her a most interesting young person." She was even then out in the stable-yard watching the horses being harnessed, "preferring to indulge a pardonable healthy young ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... le militaire!" sighed the old French song, no doubt with a touch of frivolity; but the sentiment moves us all. Sages have thought the army worth preserving for a dash of scarlet and a roll of the kettledrum; in every State procession it is the implements of death and the men of blood that we parade; and not to nursemaids only is the soldier irresistible. ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... I didn't know you went in for frivolity of this sort—if you call it frivolous dining in solitary state. Come over and join us. We're just having a bite before the show. You remember ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... thoroughfare in the greatest city of the New World is a huge structure of plain gray-stone. Solid as a prison, towering as a steeple, its cold and forbidding facade seems to rebuke the heedless levity of the passing crowd, and frown on the frivolity of the stray sunbeams which in the late afternoon play around its impassive cornices. Men point to its stern portals, glance quickly up at the rows of unwinking windows, nudge each other, and hurry onward, as the Spaniards used to ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... spring-time. After Lady Winsleigh, Thelma liked her best of all her new friends, and was fond of visiting her quiet little house in Kensington,—for it was very quiet, and seemed like a sheltered haven of rest from the great rush of frivolity and folly in which the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome, and probably also in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital. Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might extract ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... unhappy pause. "I forget what a fellow does with the other hand. Might stick it in your pocket, loudly, or expectorate on the carpet. Indulge in little frivolity. Let a rich stream of ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... jargon of our day he was a man of a peculiarly optimistic temperament. No one ever blamed him for being too subjective and introspective. It took many sharp trials and many bitter disappointments to take the inborn frivolity and superficiality out of this young man's heart. He was far on in his life, he was far on even in his religious life, before you would have ever thought of calling him a serious-minded man. Hopeful had been born and brought up to early manhood in the town ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... thoughts, nor appreciate the feelings that moved her. I was, however, considerably touched, and upbraided myself for not having hitherto done justice to the depth and sincerity of nature which underlay her external frivolity. I expressed this self-condemnation to Denny Swinton, but he met it very coldly, and would not be drawn into any discussion of the subject. Denny was not wont to conceal his opinions, and had never pretended to be enthusiastic about my engagement. This attitude of his had not troubled me ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... her from pleasure to pleasure, and from one spectacle to another, for it gratified him to show himself in public with his beautiful young wife. She certainly was not free from frivolity, but she had learnt early from her strict father, as being the guide of her younger sisters, to distinguish clearly right from wrong, and the pure from the unclean; and she soon discovered that the joys ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... earnestness. Not that the Professor inspired, or sought to inspire, sentimental emotions; but he expanded in the warm atmosphere of personal interest which some of his new acquaintances contrived to create about him. It was delightful to talk of serious things in a setting of frivolity, and to be personal ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... her better nature is that she sometimes tries to thwart us when we want to make things easy for her. Her better nature had a fearful tussle with her common sense about five years ago, when Aunt Jessie asked her to go abroad; and it nearly overcame her frivolity and her vanity last winter when I met her at the dock and insisted upon having her spend the winter with me, and our second cousin, Alicia Broome, offered to be responsible for her wardrobe. But, thanks be," she added, laughing, "the world, the flesh, and the devil won. So cheer ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... the psalm-tunes themselves, it seemed to him a dreadful thing that worship could not be conducted without this compromise with evil, this snare to catch the ear; and he harboured in the depth of his soul thoughts about the probable frivolity of David, which he hardly voiced even to himself. The fiddle, in particular, he held to be positively devilish, both in its origin and influence; those who played this unholy instrument were bound to ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... at first unable to bring any succour to faith here. However firm may have been the faith of the disciples in the appearances of Jesus in their midst, and it was firm, to believe in appearances which others have had is a frivolity which is always revenged by rising doubts. But history is still of service to faith; it limits its scope and therewith shews the province to which it belongs. The question which history leaves to faith is this: Was Jesus Christ swallowed up of death, or did he pass through ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... wisdom; they taught me to love truth, to respect reason, and to see the serious side of life. This is the only part in me which has never changed. I left their care with my moral sense so well prepared to stand any test, that this precious jewel passed uninjured through the crucible of Parisian frivolity. I was so well prepared for the good and for the true that I could not possibly have followed a career which was not devoted to the things of the mind. My teachers rendered me so unfit for any secular work that I was perforce embarked ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... tablecloth a little hand stole along and laid a gentle pressure on Jack's arm. He turned and met Mollie's eyes, grave and appealing, with no trace of the frivolity of which he had complained earlier in the day, and, at the sight, his irritation died a sudden death. Mollie must indeed have forgiven him when she condescended to so sweet an intimacy. The rush of joy which ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... who was buried in her easy chair, began to giggle at the anxious expression of the peasant, who, not understanding this frivolity, glanced at her angrily out of the corner of his eye and waited ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... measures. All adulteration of the coinage was stopped; the Jews were recalled for twenty years, and some securities were accorded to their industry and interests; and an edict renewed the prohibition of private wars. But in his personal actions, in his bearing and practices as a king, the levity, frivolity, thoughtlessness, and inconsistency of King John were the same as ever. He went about his kingdom, especially in Southern France, seeking everywhere occasions for holiday-making and disbursing, rather than for observing and reforming the state of the country. During the visit he paid ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... seem from this long catalogue of humorists that frivolity was the prevailing note of the play. But I can give assurances that this was not so. The prevailing note was a high seriousness, culminating in the last Act, when tedium supervened. I attribute my final ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... her hair the majority of people have not yet come to think so. To the average person, especially to Mrs. Grundy, who is really the most valuable customer a department store has, the impression given by bobbed hair is one of frivolity or eccentricity. The impression given the customer as she enters a store is a most important item; the head of the store knew it, and therefore he placed the ban on bobbed hair. Whichever side we take in this particular case this is true: The business woman should give, like the business ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... of entertaining his friends there," I remarked. "It is the one form of frivolity which seems to appeal ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... if there is any evil influence to which you have been gradually and unconsciously yielding. Has the world been getting closer to you through the years? Has it more attraction for you than it had in the days gone by? Do its pride and vanity, its frivolity and ungodliness, seem less obnoxious to you than it has heretofore? Does sin seem a lighter thing to you than it used to? Does the Word of God take less hold upon your conscience now than formerly? Is the voice of duty speaking in your soul in the ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... soul that makes nations great and not population. Money, comfort, limousines and ragtime are not the requisites of men when heroes are dying. I hate the thought of Fifth Avenue, with its pretty faces, its fashions, its smiling frivolity. America as a great nation will die, as all coward civilisations have died, unless she accepts the stigmata of sacrifice, which a divine opportunity again ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... popular among those who knew him in his service, though not in any hail-fellow-well-met kind of way. But among women he was not popular. As a rule they both feared and disliked him. His presence jarred upon the frivolity of the lighter members of their sex, who dimly realised that his nature was antagonistic, and the more solid ones could not understand him. Perhaps this was the reason why Colonel Quaritch had never married, had never even had a love affair ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... that be, since twelve years ago I was only five years old? The frivolity of the child cannot surely be placed to ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... house in town was full of ghosts—the ghosts that haunt such homes, made desolate by a breach of hearts. The city itself was crowded with opportunities for giving and receiving pain between mother and daughter. Christine had developed all the latent hardness of her mother's race with a sickly frivolity of her own. She made a great show of faith in her marriage venture. She boomed it in her occasional letters, which were full of scarce concealed bravado as graceful as snapping her ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... to have known the frivolity and thoughtlessness of childhood. Before she had entered the fourth year of her age she knew how to read. From that time her thirst for reading was so great, that her parents found no little difficulty in furnishing ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... beauty perished like a bud just bursting into bloom, plucked by the grim destroyer? Has she fallen a victim to tight-lacing, over-excitement, and the gaiety and frivolity of fashionable life? ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... because of its hardihood, but because of its folly. They were outvoted; but they conceived themselves loyally bound to make it a success. Zachariah and Caillaud were not of much use in organisation, and the whole burden fell upon the Major. Externally gay, and to most persons justifying the charge of frivolity, he was really nothing of the kind when he had once settled down to the work he was born to do. His levity was the mere idle sport of a mind unattached and seeking its own proper object. He was like a cat, which ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... director which he overheard, "Edwin P. Brewster is turning handsprings in his grave over the way he is going it," Monty resolved to redeem himself in the eyes of his critics. He would show them that his brain was not wholly given over to frivolity. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the old Italian masters, Correggio's art is so anomalous that it has inevitably called forth detractors. What to his admirers is mere childlike sweetness is condemned as "sentimentality," innocent playfulness as "frivolity," exuberance of vitality as "sensuality." Certainly there is nothing didactic in his art. "Space and light and motion were what Antonio Allegri of Correggio most longed to express,"[2] and to these aims he subordinated ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... man," said Sol, and he walked away jauntily. Under his apparent frivolity he concealed his joy at the find, which he knew to be of such vast importance. He approached the dusky group, and his really tender heart was stirred with pity for the rescued captives. Long Jim and Silent Tom held the smaller two ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sure,' said Tackleton. 'Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left out ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... frivolity and cruelty, 'tis said, That you, Mavourneen, wish to set your heel on Ulster's head. If you, who under Orange foot so long time have been trod, Would trample down your tyrants old, it would be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... voluptuary at the court of Nero, and the director-in-chief of the imperial pleasures; accused of treason, and dreading death at the hands of the emperor his master, he opened his veins, and by bandaging them bled slowly to death, showing the while the same frivolity as throughout his life; he left behind him a work, extant now only in fragments, but enough to expose the abyss of profligacy in which the Roman world was then sunk at that crisis of its fate; ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... their profession. Grave-eyed and intent, they went through the day's routine with a cheery patience under drudgery which showed the noble stuff of which they were made. They looked askance at Phebe's grumblings, her fluctuating enthusiasm, her hours of girlish frivolity and of pettish complaint. Among themselves, they analyzed her; but they were unable to classify her. She was foreign to their ways of life and thought; in a word, they set her down as worldly and ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... from the fret of routine's slavish toil, They meet once more in freedom's jollity. No thought of care comes to them now to spoil The merry jest, the gay frivolity." ...
— The Brochure Series of Architectural Illustration, Volume 01, No. 08, August 1895 - Fragments of Greek Detail • Various
... love's votary, Flushed with capture, Seeks the notary, Joy and jollity Then is polity; Reigns frivolity! Rapture, rapture! Joy and jollity Then is ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... precedent, inaugurated as a society pastime and accompanied by all the frivolity of the age, paved the way for Weishaupt's two classes of women members, who, although never initiated into the secrets of the Order, were to act as useful tools "directed by men without knowing it." For this purpose they were to be divided into two classes, the "virtuous" ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... misbegotten son of poverty and rhyme has to give? I have a longing to take you by the hand and unburthen my heart by saying, "Sir, I honour you as a man who supports the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish!" But, alas, Sir! to me you are unapproachable. It is true, the muses baptized me in Castalian streams, but the thoughtless gipsies forgot to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good fellow, the Nine ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Cold-heartedness Lichen, Dejection Lilac, Field, Humility Lilac, White, Innocence Lily, Day, Coquetry Lily, Imperial, Majesty Lily, White, Purity Lily, Yellow, Falsehood Linden, Conjugal Love Lint, I feel my obligations Liverwort, Confidence Lobelia, Malevolence Locust, True, Elegance London, Pride, Frivolity Lote Tree, Concord Lotus, Eloquence Lotus Flower, Estranged Love Lotus Leaf, Recantation Love in a Mist, Perplexity Love Lies Bleeding, Desertion Lucurn, Life Lupine, Voraciousness Madder, Calumny Magnolia, Love of Nature Maiden Hair, Secrecy Mallow, Wildness Mallow, Marsh, Beneficence ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... those grotesque melodramas. But with the overwhelming majority it is quite different. For them it is entertainment, and as such it is devastating. It is quite true that many a piquant comic opera shows more actual frivolity, and no one will underestimate the shady influence of such voluptuous vulgarities in their multicoloured stage setting. Yet from a psychological point of view the effect of the pathetic treatment is far more ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... less than twenty years, but before then your glad light eyes will be dim with tears, and the easy path you have striven to walk will be thickly strewn with thorn; and whether you deserve it or not, life will have for you a mournful earnestness, but notwithstanding all your frivolity and flippancy there is fine gold in your character, which the fire of affliction ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... enter upon the events attending a young lady's entrance into society. This might all be very pretty and pleasant, except for the deadly seriousness of the author. It is entirely frivolous and unimportant, but frivolity may be made charming and full of suggestion. Points of etiquette and behavior engage the minds, hearts, and passions of the personages of the story. It is a sort of animated illustration of the little book called "Don't." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... comic and so dejected, and his use of the word Abroad (as if it were a country in itself) always makes me laugh idiotically. I haven't seen him since, and it will be difficult to explain the apparent frivolity. ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... may, at first sight, appear trivial; but a second view of the subject will produce reflections on the frivolity of this people, even amidst their intestine commotions, and at the same time shew that they are, in no small degree, indebted to the influence of those events for the taste which is to be distinguished in the new productions of their industry, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... hesitate to express a difference of opinion from Mr. Atkinson, but really the matter seems to me to stand thus: It is allowed on all hands that the sin of dancing consists not in the mere action of shaking the shanks (as the Scotch say), but in the consequences that usually attend it—namely, frivolity and waste of time; when it is used only, as in the case you state, for the exercise and amusement of an hour among young people (who surely may without any breach of God's commandments be allowed a ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... no impatience in that perfect young man. Johnson did him no more than justice when he laughed to scorn the idea of his secretary leaving his post or neglecting his duty in pursuit of sport or out of youthful hilarity and frivolity. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... animation. "I don't propose to leave them too much together. After dinner we'll adjourn to their room and lighten it up a little. You must come, Kate, to look at the patient, and counteract the baleful effects of my frivolity." ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... relations. He was more and more conscious of the exciting effect she produced on himself, doubly so, indeed, because of that sudden stroke of melancholy wherewith—like a Rembrandt shadow, she had thrown into relief the gayety and frivolity of her ordinary mood. ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... sort of sly and sheepish, like they wasn't used to indulgin' in such frivolity. They seemed to enjoy it, though, and the first thing I know I'm bein' put through a sort of highbrow third degree, the object being to show up what an empty loft I ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... idler? And yet haven't we seen grave people and gay listening very contentedly at times to that wild and awful sort of frivolity; and I think there is in most men's minds, sages or zanies, a secret misgiving that dreams may have an office and a meaning, and are perhaps more than a fortuitous concourse of symbols, in fact, the language which good or evil spirits whisper over ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... fortunes, as in her old days of dependence, wherever she went she seemed to take sunshine and gladness with her. In spite of Miss Alicia's undisguised contempt for her step-mother's childishness and frivolity, Lucy was better loved and more admired than the baronet's daughter. That very childishness had a charm which few could resist. The innocence and candor of an infant beamed in Lady Audley's fair face, and shone out of her large and liquid blue eyes. ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... Macaulay was a strong, earnest man who took himself seriously. In latter years he grew morose, puritanic and was full of dread of the Unseen. He preached long sermons to his family, cautioned them against frivolity, forbade music, tabued games, and constantly spoke of the tongue ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... methods of Turcomans, Persians, and Curds; the operations of the hammam or bath are disclosed to us, and we are surreptitously introduced along with the hero to the mysteries the Persian harem or anderun, and its petty existence, inane frivolity, open jealousy, and clandestine intrigue. The death and funeral of the old barber provide an opportunity for a valuable account of Persian customs upon ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... all laughed at this scheme and considered, it a good joke, Billy Brackett was deeply in earnest beneath all his assumed frivolity. He realized that finding the raft and taking possession of it were no longer one and the same thing. The fact that it was in the hands of a gang of men who were at once shrewd and desperate rendered its recovery an affair requiring all the discretion ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... most discerning eagerness for knowledge, but without any suitable male society, it is no wonder that the young man went astray. In comparison with other German courts, the Prussian might be regarded as very virtuous: but frivolity toward women and a lack of reserve in the discussion of the most dubious relations were pronounced even there. After a visit to the dissolute court of Dresden, Prince Frederick began to behave like other princes of his time, and generally ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... the subject of crystal-gazing insist that all experiments along the said lines should be conducted in a serious, earnest manner, and that all frivolity or trifling should be avoided if the best results are wished for. This, of course, is true concerning all phases of psychic investigation, as all true students of the subject know. All the authorities agree that the crystal gazer should sit with the light behind his back, and never in ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... the reply. "It's such a bore, you know: and then I half think I promised to take La Montmorenci of the Frivolity up the Cherwell to Trumpington in the ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... at the end of this description does not greatly lessen the significance of the earlier portion, which is Addison's picture, as he is careful to tell us of 'ordinary women.' Much must be allowed for the exaggeration of a humourist, but the frivolity of women is a theme upon which Addison harps continually. Indeed, were it not for this weakness in the 'feminine world' half his vocation as a moralist in the Spectator would be gone, and if ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... and the spirit of submission and obedience to his will, which this letter breathes, descended from the grandmother to the mother, and were even instilled, in some degree, into the heart of the son. They remained, however, latent and dormant through the long years of the monarch's life of frivolity and sin, but they revived and reasserted their dominion ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... at Anagnia of an equestrian family. He was a man of loose morality, not without intellectual gifts, who by indulging in frivolity posed as a wit. In Nero's time he had acted in a harlequinade at the Juvenalian Games.[170] At first he pleaded compulsion, but afterwards he acted voluntarily, and his performances were rather clever than respectable. Rising to the command of a legion, he supported ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... Argyll, bore her honours with dignity and became a very great lady. Maria, Countess of Coventry, died aged twenty-seven, not untouched by scandal, and a victim to her own frivolity. Mrs Gunning received a valuable appointment as Housekeeper at one of the royal palaces. "The Luck of ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... left Oxford, and who had come out to Beni-Mora only a week before to see his mother, who was going through the sulphur cure. He was what is generally called a 'serious-minded young man'; intellectual, inclined to grave reading and high thinking, totally devoid of frivolity, a little cold in manner and temperament, one would have sworn; in fact, a type of a very well-known kind of Oxford undergraduate, the kind that takes a good tutorship for a year or so after leaving the University, and then becomes a schoolmaster ...
— Desert Air - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... conduct of these young ladies has been quite beyond reproach, I will not conceal from you that the attentions of a certain person, of the name of Smith, known here, and a favorite in the circles of frivolity and fashion as Captain Jack, have already made Madeleine conspicuous, and although the dear girl conducts herself with the utmost propriety, there is an air of Romance and mystery about the Young Man, not to ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... petitioners nearly frantic. For a week the trio was the butt of all the wits at Fort Warrener. And yet the entire commissioned force felt that they were being kept at the grindstone because of the frivolity of these few youngsters, and they did not like it. All the same the cavalrymen stuck up for their colonel, and the infantrymen respected him, and the matinees were business-like and profitable. They were rarely unpleasant ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... party all through; and the weather is still lovely. Mr. McQuinch is very colonial: but I think his ways make the house pleasanter than if he were still English. Carbury is quite stupid in comparison to this place. I have danced more than I ever did in my life before; and now we are so tired of frivolity that if any one ventures to strum a waltz or propose a game, we all protest. We tried to get up some choral music; but it was a failure. On Friday, George, who is looked on as a great man here, was asked to give us ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... they began their labors in the alcoves of that church architecture which covered Christendom, embracing and symbolically expressing all its ideas and institutes. Therefore some vice of imperfection, a character of frivolity, or an artificially serious treatment of lightsome subjects marked all the literature of the time, which resembled that grotesque and unaccountable mathematical figure that has its ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... who won Turiddu away—the triumphant woman. The two women represented the two kinds of love—the love that is serious, the love that is light. And experience had taught her why it is that human nature soon tires of intensity, turns to frivolity. She felt that, if she could act, she would try to show that not Turiddu's fickleness nor his contempt of the woman who had yielded, but Santuzza's sad intensity and Lola's butterfly gayety had cost Santuzza her lover and her lover his life. So, it was not Santuzza's but Lola's ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... games and had no desire that Eloquent should do so; as for going to watch other people play them—such a proceeding would have been dismissed by the elder Mr Gallup as "foolhardy nonsense." Serious-minded men had no time for such frivolity. ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... climb up there and shake her out of her frivolity. Which was strange when you consider that all his life, until three months ago, he had lived in the midst of just such unthinking flippancy, had been a part of it and had considered—as much as he ever considered anything—that it was the only life ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... his mother had cried over her own appearance often, before she became indifferent; and if he had known, he would have thought it only typical of the weakness and frivolity which he had heard attributed to Lady Mary from ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... friends, and they undoubtedly did much to stimulate the childish intellect, although Madame Necker, troubled at the precocity of her darling, frowned upon all attempts to unduly excite her mind. But great themes were constantly discussed in her presence; the frivolity of the old regime was being rapidly displaced by the intense earnestness of the men of the new era, and the most momentous questions of life and death, of time and eternity, were the subjects of the conversations to which the ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... either. He was utterly in despair. He had always regarded the things of love, and especially marriage, with tragic seriousness. He hated the frivolity of those writers whose art uses adultery as a spicy flavoring. Adultery roused in him a feeling of repulsion which was a combination of his vulgar brutality and high morality. He had always felt a mixture of religious respect and physical disgust for a woman who belonged to ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... to Atma. The frivolity of the Rajah was distasteful to him in connection with so grave a theme. His eyes involuntarily sought the glance of the young Englishman who had spoken. He was an officer in the British army and his name was Bertram. His expressive face ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... of the girlish air, in the sedateness and propriety of the young woman. Grace had always something more of these last than is common; but they had now completely removed every appearance of childish, I might almost say of girlish, frivolity. In person, her improvement was great; though an air of exceeding delicacy rather left an impression that such a being was more intended for another world, than this. There was ever an air of fragility and of pure intellectuality about my poor sister, that half disposed ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... to inform your ladyship, that, disgusted with the frivolity of what is called fashionable life, and unable to live without the higher pleasures of friendship, I have chosen for my asylum the humble, tranquil cottage of a female friend, whose tastes, whose principles have long ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... hearing, the lights of the supper shone in the gold bubbles of his wine glass. He drained it hurriedly. Outside the night, lying cold on deserted squares, blurred with gas lamps, was like a vain death after the idle frivolity of Stephen Jannan's ball. In an instant, in the shutting of a door, the blackness had claimed him; the gaiety of warm flesh and laughter vanished. Death ... and he had literally nothing in his hands, nothing in his heart. A duty, Eunice, remained. The sound of ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... irregularity and disinclination, he was member of a home school, under the immediate training of his father and his uncle, both of them good Scotch classical scholars, and one of them at least a proficient in mathematics. No doubt the human mind, especially in its best estate of juvenile vigor and frivolity, has remarkable aptitude for the repulsion of unwelcome knowledge; but it can hardly be said that even Patrick Henry's gift in that direction could have prevented his becoming, under two such masters, tolerably well grounded in Latin, if not in Greek, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... trading towns in England. They are fond of their ornaments, merely because they are good, and not because they embellish their persons; and are more gratified to inspire the women with jealousy of these exterior advantages, than the men with love. All the frivolity which often (excuse me, Madam) renders the society of modest women so stupid in England, here seemed to throw still more leaden fetters on their charms. Not being an adept in gallantry, I found that I could only keep myself ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... of Mexico, she saw nothing but ignorance, sensuality, bigotry, and indolence, nothing calculated to shake her faith as a Protestant, or cause her to forget her mother's first injunction; while the foppishness, frivolity, insolence, ignorance, and pride, of the men, by whom she was surrounded, most effectually protected her from the remotest thought of disobeying the second. The men, on the other hand, regarded her with the coolest ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... went to Professor Tzschirner and told him everything, without palliation or concealment. He censured my frivolity and lack of consideration for my position in life, but every word, every feature of his expressive face showed that he grieved for what had happened, and would have gladly punished it leniently. In after ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... expressed by the legislature. Such lawfully expressed and deliberate judgment should be given effect by the courts, save in the extreme and exceptional cases where there has been a clear violation of a constitutional provision. Anything like frivolity or wantonness in upsetting such clearly taken governmental action is a grave offense against the Republic. To protest against tyranny, to protect minorities from oppression, to nullify an act committed in a spasm of popular fury, is to render a service to the Republic. But ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... he sees what a night-owl sees at dawn. The snot is dripping from his frosty nose, And stringed saliva falls on his wet breast— Not an odd tooth in his defenceless gums, Not an old ape so engraved with wrinkles. Naevolus, for shame leave this frivolity And no more cry, "All men," ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... than Jane Grey or Lucy Hutchinson would have been. In such circumstances the standard of female attainments was necessarily low; and it was more dangerous to be above that standard than to be beneath it. Extreme ignorance and frivolity were thought less unbecoming in a lady than the slightest tincture of pedantry. Of the too celebrated women whose faces we still admire on the walls of Hampton Court, few indeed were in the habit of reading anything more valuable than acrostics, lampoons, and translations of the Clelia ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dominated by the Renaissance zest for beauty and, especially, pleasure; and on the other hand the Puritans, comprising the bulk of the middle classes, controlled by the religious principles of the Reformation, often, in their opposition to Cavalier frivolity, stern and narrow, and more and more inclined to separate themselves from the English Church in denominations of their own. The breach steadily widened until in 1642, under the arbitrary rule of Charles I, the Civil War ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... of her own invention. Helen Adams, Betty's roommate, was a forlorn, awkward little body, who came to college expecting to study all the time, and was amazed and disappointed at what she considered the frivolity of her companions. Betty Wales, in particular, with her fascinating, merry ways, her love of fun, and her easygoing fashion of getting through her work, was a revelation to Helen. She began by placing her roommate rather scornfully in ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... relations of these young women were excluded, in order that your amusements should be the more unbridled. You with a few servants undertook to direct and lead those dances. It is said that nothing is now talked of in Siena but your frivolity. Certain it is that here at the baths, where the concourse of ecclesiastics and laity is great, you are the topic of the day. Our displeasure is unutterable, since all this reflects dishonourably upon the sacerdotal estate and office. It will be said of us that we are enriched and ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... Boufflers had drawn him into a correspondence, marked by almost passionate enthusiasm on her part, and as fair an imitation of enthusiasm as Hume was capable of, on his. In the extraordinary mixture of learning, wit, humanity, frivolity, and profligacy which then characterised the highest French society, a new sensation was worth anything, and it mattered little whether the cause thereof was a philosopher or a poodle; so Hume had a great success in the Parisian world. Great nobles feted him, and ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... their moorings there, and the harbor was dotted with fishing-boats, pilot-boats, ocean steamers, steam tugs, wherries, and such craft. The little Torch, rocking madly on miniature waves as she played with her chain, was almost alone in her lightness and frivolity. About an hour before midnight Durant woke in his berth, and felt this vivacity of hers increasing; larger waves lapped her and broke against her sides, but overhead, on deck, there was no sign of a wind. He got up, climbed the companion ladder, and put his head out over ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... this frivolity? Not at all; it was a childish want of political imagination. The Poles, a people not remotely comparable to the German in depth of soul and the capacity for training talent, have for a century cherished ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... fond of drawing, and what was called poker-painting; he was given also to caricaturing, and writing of squibs. The two young ladies were evidently fond of his society, but of the other Oxford society she only mentions the ultra-Tory politics, and the stupidity and frivolity of the Heads of Houses. "The various Heads," she writes, "with their respective wives, were extremely inferior to my uncle and aunt. More than half of the Doctors of Divinity were of humble origin, the sons of small gentry or country clergy, or even of a lower grade. Many of these, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... was all that its name implied. By good fortune, the weather was perfect,—ideally pleasant and sunshiny, yet not too warm. Wistaria Porch was transformed into a veritable Fairyland, and it was a bewildering vision of flowers, flags and frivolity by day, and a blaze of illuminated ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... of analytical reasoning was new to MacRae, and it kept him from entering whole-heartedly into the joyous frivolity which functioned in the Abbott home that evening. He had never found himself in that critical mood before. He did not want to prattle nonsense. He did not want to think, and he could not help thinking. He had a curious sense of detachment from what was going on, even while he was ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... gay season of Edinburgh, Alicia expected to find all the vanity, emptiness, and frivolity of London dissipation, without its varied brilliancy and elegant luxury; yet, so much was it the habit of her mind to look to the fairest side of things, and to extract some advantage from every situation in which she was placed, that pensive ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... the windows and the doors, As when conflagration settles On a house, the flame bursts forth Where an opening is presented. "This," they told me, "is the villa Of delights, the bath of pleasures, The abode of the luxurious, Where are punished all those women Who were in the other life, From frivolity excessive, Too much given to scented waters, Unguents, rouges, baths, and perfumes."— I went in, and there beheld, In a tank of cold snow melted, Many lovely women bathing, With an upturned look of terror; Underneath the water they Were ...
— The Purgatory of St. Patrick • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... appears to have thought that she was beginning to drift on to rocks of serious political mistakes and misfortunes as well as into rapids of frivolity, when the good, wise Pilot came to take the helm of ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... ever intrusted to the custody of a friend. You are the arbiter of my fate. More, much more than my life is in your disposal. If you should betray me, you will commit a crime, that laughs to scorn the frivolity of all former baseness. You will inflict upon me a torture, in comparison of which all the laborious punishments that tyrants have invented, are couches of luxury, ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... is a skeleton in every fold—I mean to say, a black sheep in every cupboard. She was undeniably beautiful, and had a romantic postcard face. Her figure was perfect. Her intelligence was C 3. In a weak moment she accepted a thinking part in a revue at the "Frivolity," and her career ended, as might have been expected, in a shocking mesalliance. She married the Marquis of Beanstrite, and has more than once appeared on the back page of the "Daily Mail," but that is not everything. She never sees anything of me now, and it brings ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... of the disgrace which you have, by reason of the aforesaid actions and conduct, brought upon his name, and because of various and sundry acts of disobedience, as well as your life of frivolity and dissipation,—our client has instructed us to inform you, that he has cut you off from him absolutely; that he has drawn a new will wherein the amount of your legacy is fixed at the sum of one ($1.00) ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... was peace and festivity within the old imperial city, all war and threat without it. While Otho and his courtiers, knights and ladies, lords and minions, were enjoying life with ball and banquet, feast and frivolity, in true palatial fashion, an army was marching secretly upon them, with treacherous intent to seize the emperor and his city at one full swoop. Lothaire, King of France, had in haste and secrecy collected an army, and, without a declaration ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... a claironet, foretells that you will indulge in frivolity beneath your usual dignity. {I}f it is broken, you will incur the ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... irreverence, I turned my back on him and marched out. His vocal arrangements blared after me a few threats of coming down on the ship for the demurrage of the lighters, and all the other expenses consequent upon the delays arising from my frivolity. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... head or pity him profoundly as we see him ill and helpless in Zola's Debacle, most of us, if we are candid, will confess that the Second Empire, especially the Paris of Morny and Hausmann, of cynicism and splendour, of frivolity and chicane, of servile obsequiousness and haughty pretension, the France and the Paris that drew to themselves the eyes of all Europe and particularly the eyes of the watchful Bismarck, have for us a fascination ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... that interested her in my existence, and initiated me into the sphere of her domestic cares. It pleased her that my needs were few; but that I did not even feel the need of damming up the briskly flowing stream of my income and making a little lake of it, this appeared to her as frivolity, indeed as unrighteous, and she endeavored to reform me, to make me more aware of the value of money, of the money that I had earned, and in some measure to guide my expenditures. I do not mean to say that she ever made tiresome reprimands or admonitions. Simple ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... in a strange state of mind at the time. Among the ladies especially a sort of frivolity was conspicuous, and it could not be said to be a gradual growth. Certain very free-and-easy notions seemed to be in the air. There was a sort of dissipated gaiety and levity, and I can't say it was always quite pleasant. A lax way of thinking was the fashion. ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... interpret abnormal, psychopathic characters whose feelings and thoughts are expressed by the actors with a fine and vivid realism. There is the exultation of life, and the despair, the aggression and apathy, the frivolity and the revolt. The action is taken slowly. There are no stars. You look at the screen as though you were looking at life itself. And the films don't always have happy endings, because life isn't always kind. It often seems senseless and cruel and crushes men's ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... meals. Well, it is for the sake of the children; and their mother, bless her"—here he glanced at the picture of the girl over the mantelpiece—"would smile at me if she could. Oh, yes, I buckle on my armor cheerfully enough. Hey, for Chaos! Hey, for wild Mirth and childish Frivolity! Here I come, Eric and Maggie—poor patient little mice that you are! Here's father at last. Give me your hand, Mag: you may jump on my shoulder, if you like. Now for a race downstairs to the garden, and then you can tell me what you got me out of ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... loaded with vessels of gold and silver. He was doubtless ostentatious, but his hospitality was free, and his person was as accessible as a primitive bishop. He is accused of being light and frivolous; but this I doubt. He had too many cares and duties for frivolity. He doubtless unbent. All men loaded down with labors must unbend somewhere. It was nothing against him that he told good stories at the royal table, or at his own, surrounded by earls and barons. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... assemblage, there were a great many of these clergymen. A dozen or more dignified, and for the most part elderly, brethren sat grouped about the Bishop in the pulpit. As many others, not quite so staid in mien, and indeed with here and there almost a suggestion of frivolity in their postures, were seated on the steps leading down from this platform. A score of their fellows sat facing the audience, on chairs tightly wedged into the space railed off round the pulpit; and then came five or six rows of pews, stretching across the whole breadth of ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... own secrets or character, into frank talk about himself. All unconsciously he began to lay bare to his listener the infirmities of his erring, open heart. Silently she looked down, and plumbed them all,—the frivolity, the recklessness, the half gay, half mournful sense of waste and ruin. There, blooming amongst the wrecks, she saw the fairest flowers of noble manhood profuse and fragrant still,—generosity and courage and disregard for self. Spendthrift and gambler on one side ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I am glad to hear it: for I scorn a life of frivolity; but then, again, I should not like to give up everything, you know." Mrs. Dodd looked a little staggered, too, at so vast a scheme of capitulation But "everything" was soon explained to mean balls, concerts, dinner-parties in general, tea-parties without exposition of Scripture, races, and operas, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... he, being entirely unsocial in his own nature, had a curious idea that the family should be sufficient to itself, and that the desire for any form of entertainment outside it was a sign of dissatisfaction with God's gifts of a good home, and generally a frivolity to be discouraged. ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... disposition like triple distilled extract of charity, treated him like a dog. He stayed around for a month cluttering up the Briggs's front porch day and night, while Minnie put up an imitation of haughty indifference and careless frivolity which was as good as a show for every one in town except Sam, who couldn't see through it. That's one of our small town assets—you get to look on at most of the love affairs. We watched Minnie and Sam with our hearts in our mouths for fear she'd carry it too far and lose him, for ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... considered the most profitable use of school time, thus to 'like folly show' to unknit juvenile brains the abstract and high thought of mature and great minds, who uttered them with no foolishness or frivolity in their intentions! We see reasons to expect substantial advantages from Mr. Willson's books; and we believe teachers will appreciate and use them. We could wish they had not gone so far to mechanicalize ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... charming and amiable young lady in Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dynamiter,' who amused herself in moments of temporary gaiety by blowing up inhabited houses, inmates and all, out of pure lightness of heart and girlish frivolity. An Indian mantis or praying insect, a little less wicked, though no less cruel than the spiders, deceives the flies who come to his arms under the false pretence of being a quiet leaf, upon which they ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... it seemed to her unsuitable for Anna to be on horseback. The conception of riding on horseback for a lady was, in Darya Alexandrovna's mind, associated with ideas of youthful flirtation and frivolity, which, in her opinion, was unbecoming in Anna's position. But when she had scrutinized her, seeing her closer, she was at once reconciled to her riding. In spite of her elegance, everything was so simple, quiet, and dignified in the attitude, the dress and the movements of ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... way his son met him, and fell on his knees, confessing his fault, and humbly asking pardon. Then said Father Kou, "The frivolity of man often wars against the wisdom of heaven, but you may thank your stars, my son, that I have recovered the power to annihilate the traces of the suffering which your folly has brought on the people." As he spoke, he sat down on a stone, and blew into the thunder-instrument ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... mood for frivolity, Private Smith rose and followed the youth on deck. The air struck him as chill as he stood there; but, for all that, it was with a sense of relief that he saw Her Majesty's uniform go over the side and sink ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... contemptuous. Nevertheless, on the whole the scheme, as time went on, promised to be not unsuccessful. Endymion, though not rapidly, advanced surely, and made some amends for the years that had been wasted in fashionable private schools and the then frivolity of Eton. Myra, who, notwithstanding her early days of indulgence, had enjoyed the advantage of admirable governesses, was well grounded in more than one modern language, and she soon mastered them. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli |
