"Inconstancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... advertised touching the proceedings here in ecclesiastical causes, because you seem to note in them some inconstancy and variation, as if we sometimes inclined to one side, sometimes to another, as if that clemency and lenity were not used of late that was used in the beginning, all which you impute to your own superficial understanding ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the darkness of this our age, in which, besides all the huge and heinous sins, which it has common with all the wicked of the world committed, is found an innate, indelible, and irremediable load of folly and inconstancy?" "What, wretched man (I say to myself) is it given to you, as if you were an illustrious and learned teacher, to oppose the force of so violent a torrent, and keep the charge committed to you against such a series of inveterate crimes which has spread far and wide, without inter- ruption, for so ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... diversion of the whole court, been drawn away from his plain consort by a plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. His second wife, though twenty years younger than himself, and of no unpleasing face or figure, had frequent reason to complain of his inconstancy. But of all his illicit attachments the strongest was that which bound ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... whose ministry the people were once more reduced into the fold of Christ, and the affairs of the infidels were ruined. But this priest remained not long upon the island, and the people, destitute of all spiritual instructions, returned soon after, through their natural inconstancy, to their original barbarism. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... "Oh! the inconstancy, the fancifulness of these English," he generalized, with suppressed passion, right into my face. "I don't know what's worse, their fury or their pity. The childishness of it! The childishness.... Do you imagine, Senor, that Manuel or the Juez O'Brien shall ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... burning.(331) Evidently in 605-4 they were not so impressed with the divinity of Jeremiah's word as they had been in 608. Then they did not speak of telling the king; now they say that they must tell(332) him. Jehoiakim's malignant influence has grown, and Jeremiah discovers the inconstancy of the princes, even ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... description of my name, My nature or conditions, were but vain; Sith this attire so plainly shows the same, As showed cannot be in words more plain. For lo, thus roundabout in feathers dight, Doth plainly figure mine inconstancy: As feathers, light of mind; of wit as light, Subjected still to mutability, And for to paint me forth more properly, Behold each feather decked gorgeously With colours strange in such variety, As plainly pictures perfect vanity. And so I am, to put you out of doubt, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... be felt by us both in some measure. It will be very important to missionaries to be men of calmness and evenness of temper, and rather inclined to suffer hardships than to court the favour of men, and such who will be indefatigably employed in the work set before them, an inconstancy of mind being quite ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... cannot help remarking that this circuit of the wind from SW. by W. to NW. or N., from our insular position, imparts to our climate its fickleness and inconstancy. How often will our brightest sky become suffused by the blackest vapours on the slightest breach of SW. wind, and the clouds will then disappear as speedily as they formed, when the NW. upper current forces their stratum of moist air to rise and mingle with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling that his attentions were due to the family in general, and must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of short barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at the stable-door; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... have had no agency therein, nor have I conceived a thought on the subject that has not been disclosed to you with the utmost sincerity and frankness of heart. And now, notwithstanding the insinuations, which are implied in your letter, of the vicissitudes of friendship and the inconstancy of mine, I will pronounce with decision that it ever has been, and, notwithstanding the unkindness of the charge, ever will be, for aught I know to ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... yourselves are disparaging it. Forsooth, because the commons have violated a decree of the senate, by re-appointing their magistrates, you yourselves also wish it to be violated, lest ye should yield to the populace in rashness; as if to possess greater power in the state consisted in having more of inconstancy and irregularity; for it is certainly more inconstant and greater folly, to do away with one's own decrees and resolutions, than those of others. Imitate, conscript fathers, the inconsiderate multitude; and ye, who should be an example to others, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... joy; but whether on account of himself or me, I shall not pretend to determine. Next day a third billet-doux was brought to me, containing many expressions of tenderness, mingled with some affecting doubts about the artifice of man, the inconstancy of youth, and the jealousy often attending the most sincere passion; withal desiring I would excuse her, if she should try me a little longer, before she declared herself beyond the power of retracting. These ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... Darrell could not speak of the letter he had received at Malta, nor of Caroline's visit to him at Fawley; for to do so, even to Fairthorn, was like a treason to the dignity of the Beloved. And Guy Darrell might rail at her inconstancy—her heartlessness; but to boast that she had lowered herself by the proffers that were dictated by repentance, Guy Darrell could not do that;—he was a gentleman. Still there was much left to say. He ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... have to do that," I replied. "She will go, never fear. Leave her to herself, her mood will have changed by morning. There is only one thing to be relied upon in women, and that is their inconstancy, not alone to men but ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Bank, which occurred about that time, but no one who knew Sir Alexander Galt would waste time in seeking to account for his actions, which often could only be accounted for by his constitutional inconstancy. In saying this I do not for a moment wish to ascribe any sordid or unworthy motive to Galt, who was a man of large and generous mind and of high honour. He was, however, never a party man. He could not be brought to understand the necessity for deferring sometimes to his leader. That spirit ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... work which Gibbon published in his father's lifetime. His account of the latter's death (November 10, 1770) is feelingly written, and shows the affectionate side of his own nature to advantage. He acknowledges his father's failings, his weakness and inconstancy, but insists that they were compensated by the virtues of the head and heart, and the warmest sentiments of honour and humanity. "His graceful person, polite address, gentle manners, and unaffected cheerfulness recommended him to the favour of every company." And Gibbon recalls ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... well say, Count Robert, that it is the first time," answered Brenhilda, "that you have shown to me the inconstancy of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... calming an insistent visitor. Certainly they impressed Burke with a belief in their sincere but secret sympathy with the royalist cause. The three men also agreed in suspecting Leopold, though Burke tried to prove that his treachery was not premeditated, but sprang from "some complexional inconstancy." Pitt and Grenville, knowing the doggedness with which the Emperor pushed towards his goal, amidst many a shift and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... always neat, and still as simply arranged as possible, had an indescribable air of care and taste that added to the effect of grace and pleasantness, and made Rachel feel convinced in a moment that the wonder would have been not in constancy to such a creature but in inconstancy. The notion that any one could turn from that brilliant, beaming, refined face to her own, struck her with a sudden humiliation. There was plenty of conversation, and her voice was not immediately ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of Shakspeare's plays harder to characterize. The name and the remembrances connected with it, prepare us for the representation of attachment no less faithful than fervent on the side of the youth, and of sudden and shameless inconstancy on the part of the lady. And this is, indeed, as the gold thread on which the scenes are strung, though often kept out of sight and out of mind by gems of greater value than itself. But as Shakspeare calls forth nothing from the mausoleum of history, or ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... 10: The practice of making "maxims," axiomata, encouraged the enlivenment of conversation by the introduction of topsy-turvy statements, such as "Constancy is merely inconstancy arrested," in the manner of Oscar ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... development; but it is nevertheless hardly open to doubt that Sterne's philandering propensities did exercise an influence upon his literary character and work in more ways than one. That his marriage was an ill-assorted and unhappy union was hardly so much the cause of his inconstancy as its effect. It may well be, of course, that the "dear L.," whose moral and mental graces her lover had celebrated in such superfine, sentimental fashion, was a commonplace person enough. That she was really a woman of the exquisite stolidity of Mrs. Shandy, and that her exasperating feats ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... censorships, three triumphs, one dictatorship, and the office of master of the horse; and was famous for eminent men, particularly, Salinator and the Drusi. Salinator, in his censorship [295], branded all the tribes, for their inconstancy in having made him consul a second time, as well as censor, although they had condemned him to a heavy fine after his first consulship. Drusus procured for himself and his posterity a new surname, by killing in single ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... was," quoth Ganymede, "that they were women's sons, and took that fault of their mother, for if man had grown from man, as Adam did from the earth, men had never been troubled with inconstancy." ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... was as sure of Ellinor's love for him as if she had uttered all the vows that women ever spoke; he knew even better than she did how fully and entirely that innocent girlish heart was his own. He was too proud to dread her inconstancy for an instant; "besides," as he went on to himself, as if to make assurance doubly sure, "whom does she see? Those stupid Holsters, who ought to be only too proud of having such a girl for their cousin, ignore her existence, and spoke slightingly ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a perpetual inconstancy which causes our heart to attach itself to all the qualities of the person we love in succession, sometimes giving the preference to one, sometimes to another. This constancy is merely inconstancy fixed, and limited ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... brimming water-course. The conversion of Java to the materialistic creed for which she forsook the subtleties of an impersonal Buddhism, though shallow was complete, and the doctrine of impermanence, inculcated by the discarded faith, continued an essential factor in spiritual development, for the inconstancy of the national mind only found a temporary halting-place in each successive creed which arrested it. The seed was sown, the bud opened, and the flower faded, with incredible rapidity, but the growth while it lasted, showed phenomenal luxuriance. The erection of these ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... later works: however, if they be examined by the true rules of criticism, no such contradiction will be found. Farther, if, as I have advanced in years, conversation with able men, and a more perfect examination, have made me change my sentiments, I ought not on that account to be accused of inconstancy, no more than St. Augustin, who retracted many things." He again touches on this point in his Votum pro pace[633]. "If in my youth, says he, having less knowledge than now, the prejudices of education, or a blind attachment ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... surnamed the Apostate, rebelled against Constantius, his cousin-german, in the spring, in 360, and by his death, in November, 361, obtained the empire. He was one of the most infamous dissemblers that ever lived. Craft, levity, inconstancy, falsehood, want of judgment, and an excessive vanity, discovered themselves in all his actions, and appear in his writings, namely, his epistles, his satire called Misopogon, and his lives of the Caesars. He wrote the last work to censure ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... to gloss over your first inconstancy, sir,' she said, archly; but he was spared from further reply by Philip Sidney's coming to tell him that the Ambassador was ready to return home. He took leave with an alacrity that redoubled his courtesy so much that he desired to be commended to his cousin Diane, whom ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we render thee sad?" said she. "Not you," sighed I, "but my own inconstancy! I worship each and each; in the morning one, And then, alas! another at ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... multiplied transfers of affection occasionally caused some disappointment among the victims of Mr. Maltboy's inconstancy, it was wisely ordained that he should be the principal sufferer—that every new passion should involve him in new difficulties, and subject him to a degree of mental distress which would have reduced ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... seemed as vast as all space, and as enduring as eternity itself. It's true the sea is an uncertain element, but no sailor remembers this in the presence of its bewitching power any more than a lover ever thinks of the proverbial inconstancy of women. And Mr. Powell, being young, thought naively that the captain being married, there could be no occasion for anxiety as to his condition. I suppose that to him life, perhaps not so much his own as that ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... poets and artists, with their immediate and aesthetic joys, are not thought to be happy men; they themselves are apt to be loud in their lamentations, and to regard themselves as eminently and tragically unhappy. This arises from the intensity and inconstancy of their emotions, from their improvidence, and from the eccentricity of their social habits. While among them the sensuous and vital functions have the upper hand, the gregarious and social instincts are subordinated and often deranged; and their ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... other hand, the Magyar and the Basque do not depart in any essential physical peculiarity from the Indo-Germans, whilst the Magyar, Basque, and Indo-Germanic tongues are widely different. Apart from their inconstancy, again, the so-called race characters can hardly yield a scientifically natural system. Languages, on the other hand, readily fall into a natural arrangement, like that of which other vital products are susceptible, especially when viewed from their morphological ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... place, I think myself oblidg'd to vindicat myself from the imputation of inconstancy for acting in this voyage against the English Intrest, and in the yeare 1683 against the French Intrest, for which, if I could not give a very good account, I might justly lye under the sentenc of capritiousness & ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... who (since the use of perukes) accustom to wash their heads, instead of powdering, would doubtless find the benefit of it; both as to the preventing of aches in their head, teeth, and ears, if the vicissitude and inconstancy of the weather, and consequently the use of their monstrous perukes, did not expose them to the danger of catching colds. When I travelled in Italy, and the Southern parts, I did sometimes frequent the public baths (as the manner is), but seldom without peril of my life, till I used this ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... many, even of the best of men, might have erred in the same way; but this was an argument which would have much more weight with his own sex than with women. Men know their own frailties, and are therefore charitable; women consider inconstancy to be the one unpardonable sin, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... and yet he mixes so much probability in the circumstances, that they are always eloquently proper. He does everything, as it were, the reverse of other poets; in the air and sea, which have been in all times the emblems of change and the similitudes of inconstancy, he has discovered the very principles of permanency. The ocean in his view, not by its vastness, its unfathomable depths, and its limitless extent, becomes an image of ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... of fact, we were richer. The captain had the usual sailor's provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual sailor fashion, he would daily drug himself, displaying an extreme inconstancy, and flitting from Kennedy's Red Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from Hood's Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel's Syrup. And there were, besides, some mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over which Nares would ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... itself without interest. Eight large folios, each consisting of a thousand closely printed pages, stand like a vast mountain, of which, before we climb, we may be anxious to learn the security of the passage. The history of dictionaries is the most mutable of all histories; it is a picture of the inconstancy of the knowledge of man; the learning of one generation passes away with another; and a dictionary of this kind is always to be repaired, to be rescinded, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... sentiment in Orinda, the sensitive and absorbing demands of her affection, and, perhaps, some lightness, or even falsity, on the part of Rosania, led to a rupture. The indignant and unhappy Orinda expressed her sorrows in several heartfelt poems, one of which bears the superscription, "To the Queen of Inconstancy, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... reason than the discovery of Viola's sex. In the same way Romeo turns from Rosaline to Juliet at first sight. This trait has been praised by Coleridge and others as showing singular knowledge of a young man's character, but I should rather say that inconstancy was a characteristic of sensuality and belonged to Shakespeare himself, for Orsino, like Romeo, has no reason to change his love; and the curious part of the matter is that Shakespeare does not seem ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... smoothed the cadence, or regulated the measure; on these I have not exercised the same rigour; if only a word was transposed, or a particle inserted or omitted, I have sometimes suffered the line to stand; for the inconstancy of the copies is such, as that some liberties may be easily permitted. But this practice I have not suffered to proceed far, having restored the primitive diction wherever it could for ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... which, being prolonged, fell off into a dismal wail. Checking himself, with fierce inconstancy ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... savages, on the first year behaved himself so among them as to draw from them their inexpressible esteem. He married a woman of the nation, and repudiating their example, did not change his wife, by which he taught his wild neighbors that God did not love inconstancy. By this woman, his first and only wife, he had one son and two daughters, the latter were afterwards married, "very handsomely, to Frenchmen, and had good dowries." Of the son there is preserved a single touching incident. In person the baron was strikingly handsome, ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... more graciously than usual. The magician's daughter could not contain her delight at this change, and in answer to her expressions of joy, Lino told her that he had had a dream by which he had learned the inconstancy of Hermosa; also that a fairy had appeared and informed him that if he wished to break the bonds which bound him to the faithless princess and transfer his affections to the daughter of Ismenor, he must have in his possession for a day and a night ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... it to oblige my friend Blaize," replied Pillichody. "It was agreed between us that if you showed any inconstancy, you were ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... habit or affection discordant and inconsistent with itself through life. Thus it happens, that in the one case a disease and sickness may arise from a corruption of opinions; in the other case the consequence may be inconstancy and inconsistency. For every vice of the mind does not imply a disunion of parts; as is the case with those who are not far from being wise men: with them there is that affection which is inconsistent with itself ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... fallacious signs, broke into a stammering eloquence of passion that was yet too plain to be misunderstood—not reflecting, he, that maiden blushes may have more sources than one. The hot torrent of Bessie's rose from the fountain of indignation in her heart—indignation at his inconstancy to the sweet lady who she knew loved him, and his impertinence in daring to address herself when she knew he loved that lady. She silently confessed that to this upshot his poor pretences of wooing had tended from the first, and that she had been wilfully half blind and wholly unbelieving—so ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... died an exclusive, matter-of-fact, joyless death, even as she had lived. Ben came to the funeral. He called on Hattie the next day. Inconstancy was not one of his weaknesses, and the veil of her Commencement beauty had clung to her through these many years, in her old lover's eyes. He was again impetuous and offended every conservative propriety of Hattie's dutiful melancholy by asking her to ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... amongst the opponents of Government. "I now doubt," he observes, "very much of the possibility of arranging Mr. Fox's and Lord North's friends in such a manner as to make their system carry the appearance of permanency." The inconstancy of the reports in circulation reflected faithfully the uncertainty that hung over the action of all parties; and in that uncertainty lay the principal, perhaps the only, ground of hope that ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... will—somewhere in the depths of his earthly nature a spark of good survived, and fired him with so pure an ardour that at the least hint of disrespect to his mistress, at a thought of injury to her, the whole man rose in arms. It was a strange, yet a common inconsistency; an inconstancy to evil odd enough to set The McMurrough marvelling, while common enough to commend itself to ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... received.' This excited intense disgust amongst English officers who had been engaged in the Irish wars. Thus Sir John Harrington, writing to a bishop, said: 'I have lived to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone, brought to England, honoured and well liked. Oh, what is there that does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters! How I did labour after that knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was near starving, eat horseflesh in Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives to destroy him; and now doeth Tyrone dare ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... appearance, but a tempest was in his brain and freezing cold in his heart. What he had just seen and comprehended seemed to him incomprehensible. Was it doubt, inconstancy, betrayal? ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... announced between Jeffrey and the young heiress. This and his previous attentions to Cora had made much talk, both in Washington and elsewhere, and there were not lacking those who had openly twitted him for his seeming inconstancy. This had been over the cups of course, and Jeffrey had borne it well enough from his so-called friends and intimates. But when, on a certain evening in the parlor of one of the large hotels in Atlantic City, a fellow whom nobody knew and nobody liked accused him of knowing ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... nerves of the back, loins, arms, hands, and a general convulsion of the stomach, bowels, throat, legs, and indeed almost every other part of the body—A quick apprehension, forgetful, unsettled, and constant to nothing but inconstancy—A wandering and delirious imagination, groundless fears, and an exquisite sense of his sufferings—A gradually sinking into a nervous atrophy or consumption—A perpetual alarm of approaching death—Sometimes cheerful, and sometimes melancholy—Without present enjoyment ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... doubt that you loved me then. But wealth, I had been told, is so demoralising, and I thought your never coming forward to find me and protect me in my illness might have something to do with inconstancy. Anyhow, these thoughts combined with my dread of your mother to prevent me ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... already regarded as imperfect and unsatisfactory. Shall the despair of success make me assert, that I am here possest of an idea, which is not preceded by any similar impression? This would be too strong a proof of levity and inconstancy; since the contrary principle has been already so firmly established, as to admit of no farther doubt; at least, till we have more fully examined ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... ankle, and make one wish he had been born a sheep rather than a sentient man who had to live without Mary Tudor? Yet, strange as it may seem, I was really and wholly in love with Jane; in fact, I loved no one but Jane, and my feeling of intense admiration for Mary was but a part of man's composite inconstancy. ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... it also holds in the folio. And in very many of these cases the name is printed with a hyphen, "Shake-speare," as if on purpose that there might be no mistake about it. All which, surely, is or ought to be decisive as to how the Poet willed his name to be spelt in print. Inconstancy in the spelling of names was very common ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... doubted her, and why? She had given him all; it was not her fault if he wearied of her tyranny. No; he alone was to blame, his inconstancy, his weakness. He poured forth a torrent of self-reproach, and words of love, and she responded passionately. Once more they were lovers, thrilling to each other's touch. And the wan moon looked on at their transports, and perchance the pale wraith of the Countess ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... respect thou bearest to the dogly character, and can attribute to nothing else the complacency with which thou hast listened to me since I released thy cloak. If ever the Athenians, in their inconstancy, should issue a decree to deprive me of the appellation they have conferred on me, rise up, I pray thee, in my defence, and protest that I have not merited so severe a mulct. Something I do deserve at ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... these Artificers have a Superior Officer called Amiraglio, who commands the Bucentaure on Ascension Day, when the Duke goes in state to marry the sea. And here we cannot but notice, that by a ridiculous custom this Admiral makes himself Responsible to the Senat for the inconstancy of the Sea, and engages his Life there shall be no Tempest that day. 'Tis this Admiral who has the Guard of the Palais, St. Mark, with his Arsenalotti, during the interregnum. He carries the Red Standard before the Prince when he makes his Entry, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... large bunch on the Romsey Road. An old woman described having tried the augury, having laid the plants in pairs on Midsummer Eve, naming them after pairs of sweethearts. Those that twisted away from each other showed inconstancy! ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... Christians have never been compelled to renounce the Gospel, or to embrace the Koran; but the punishment of death is inflicted upon the apostates who have professed and deserted the law of Mahomet. The martyrs of Cordova provoked the sentence of the cadhi, by the public confession of their inconstancy, or their passionate invectives against the person and religion of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... trembling as she saw that he kept for the outer world those treasures of wit and grace that he formerly would lay at her feet. She soon began to find sinister meaning in the jocular speeches that are current in the world as to the inconstancy of men. She made no complaints, but her ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... groundless; and you may possibly be tormenting yourself with a whole train of imaginary evils. As you value your peace, then, keep from you, if possible, all such vexatious apprehensions, and remember, a man can very ill bear the idea of being suspected of inconstancy even when guilty; but when innocent, it is ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... he fares "Of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed," it would be as idle to assume a reminiscence of a passage of Montaigne on the chameleon[55] as it would be to derive Hamlet's phrase "A king of shreds and patches" from Florio's rendering in the essay[56] OF THE INCONSTANCY OF ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... of it, there is something singularly unreasonable about almost all floral symbolism. There is your forget-me-not, pink in the bud, and sapphire in the flower, with a fruit that breaks up into four, the very picture of inconstancy and discursiveness. Yet your lover, with a singular blindness, presents this to his lady when they part. Then the white water-lily is supposed to represent purity of heart, and, mark you, it is white without and its centre is all ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... presenting no obstacle to his aspersing the character of his lady-love, when he found it convenient to point a moral by so doing. But of all men who ever lived, surely one of the most consistently inconsistent was Henry the Third. In most instances he was "constant to one thing—his inconstancy." Like his father, he possessed two virtues: but they were not the same. Henry was not a lover of cruelty for its own sake—which John was: and he was not personally a libertine. Of his father's virtues, bravery and honesty, ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... if there be another world i' th' moon, As some fantastics dream, I could wish all men, The whole race of them, for their inconstancy, Sent thither to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... came over to hold the tails of Meg's cows. Jock Forrest still went out, saying nothing, whenever the Cuif came in, which the Cuif took to be a good sign. Only Ebie Fairrish, struck to the heart by the inconstancy of Jess, removed at the November term back again to the "laigh end" of the parish, and there plunged madly into flirtations with several of his old sweethearts. He is reported to have found in numbers the anodyne for the ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... pitying me a little, because of the minister's inconstancy," she said to herself. "Why am I laughing at it, Rosie? You ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... gravity, with what hieratic dignity, with what sacramental intentness he endows it; the eloquence of the greatest critics has here found a darling subject. But let us look a moment at certain of his symbols in the Arena at Padua, at the "Inconstancy," the "Injustice," the "Avarice," for instance. "What are the significant traits," he seems to have asked himself, "in the appearance and action of a person under the exclusive domination of one of these vices? Let me paint the person with these traits, and I shall have a ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... of lust or license. Men will, on the whole, continue to prefer one partner, and friendship will refine the grossness of sense. There are worse evils than open and avowed inconstancy—the loathsome combination of deceitful intrigue with the selfish monopoly of property. That a child should know its father is no great matter, for I ought not in reason to prefer one human being to another because he is "mine." The mother will care for the child with the spontaneous help of ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... Angels, and now they weave the dance in their fellowship, whose lives also they imitated. Blessed, yea, thrice blessed are they, because with sure spiritual vision they discerned the vanity of this present world and the uncertainty and inconstancy of mortal fortune, and cast it aside, and laid up for themselves everlasting blessings, and laid hold of that life which never faileth, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... with Miss Montgomerie, (he pronounced the name with an involuntary shuddering), all I ask, therefore, is whether your wretchedness proceeds from the rejection of your suit, or from any levity or inconstancy you may ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... the formal surrender of Bands to the sovereignty of the King of England, before the Hollanders might land or commence their intended fort. The states seemed to like this proposal, and promised to take it into consideration, and to give me an answer, but I was doubtful of their inconstancy, neither did they come to any conclusion. The Dutch landed 1200 men on the 15th from 20 boats, and the natives fled. The 20th I went on shore to fetch rice, in part of a debt due by Daton Patee to our company; but the Hollanders had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... I hold that the British tar would scarcely be the "soaring soul" that he is were it not for the influence—not always a beneficial influence, by the way, of the softer sex. And here, a word for him with special respect to what people are pleased to call his inconstancy. With all his vagaries, and from the very nature of his calling he has many, I think there are few other professions which would bear weighing in the balance with his and not be found as wanting in this quality. True, none is so easily swayed, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... intolerable burdens; always dresses becoming to her rank and age; is modest without prudery, religious without an alloy of superstition; can hear the one sex praised without envy, and converse with the other without permitting the torch of inconstancy to kindle the unhallowed fire in her breast; considers her husband as the most accomplished of mortals, and thinks all the sons of Adam besides unworthy of a transient glance from the corner ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... least attractive of all Browning's poems—had mystified most of its readers and been little relished by the rest. And now that plea for a discredited politician was followed up by what, on the face of it, was, as Mrs Orr puts it, "a defence of inconstancy in marriage." The apologist for Napoleon III. came forward as the advocate of Don Juan. The prefixed bit of dialogue from Moliere's play explains the situation. Juan, detected by his wife in an intrigue, is completely nonplussed. "Fie!" cries Elvire, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... story, so intricate that it cannot be made clear in a brief statement. But this central fact may be insisted upon: in the North, there were two political groups that were the poles around which various other groups revolved and combined, only to fly asunder and recombine, with all the maddening inconstancy of a kaleidoscope. The two irreconcilable elements were the "war party" made up of determined men resolved to see things through, and the "copperheads"* who for one reason or another united in a faithful struggle for peace at any price. ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... 'The Queen's word be done,' and departed. Then Nyleptha sent a messenger to Sir Henry, and presently he arrived looking uncommonly uncomfortable. I thought that another outburst was about to follow, but wonderful are the ways of woman; she said not a word about Sorais and his supposed inconstancy, greeting him with a friendly nod, and stating simply that she required his advice upon high matters. All the same there was a look in her eye, and a sort of suppressed energy in her manner towards him, that makes me think that ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... availed himself of the excuse; and Mike prayed that he might find the ladies at home. They were in the drawing-room. The piano was played, and amid tea and muffins, tennis was discussed, allusions were made to man's inconstancy. ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... with a sweet angle of opposition at her black nurse's hand and I near a man grown, and though I had naught to hope for save a fleeting grasp of her rosy fingers and a wavering smile from her sweet lips and eyes, ere she flung the offering away with innocent inconstancy. ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... of Santa Maria del Carmine. Scarcely was it ended and the prelate gone when Masaniello, with a crucifix in his hand, mounted the pulpit. His speech was a mixture of truth and madness; he complained of the inconstancy of the people, enumerated his services, described the oppressions that would fall upon them if they deserted him; he confessed his sins, and admonished the others to do the same before the Holy Virgin, that they might obtain the mercy of God, and as he raised ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... here the motives for this change, because we believe it is very difficult to lift the veil which covers the mysteries of the political inconstancy of the Cabinet of St. James's; and leaving the solution of this enigma to time, that great OEdipus of history, we will here make only this remark, that English diplomacy has allowed a favourable opportunity to escape for taking the initiative in all the great questions which concern ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... exclusively consulting just what she likes best, not what would be or prove best for others. She thinks, indeed, but little of anything except with reference to herself, and what gives her an air, and will give her a character, for inconstancy, that is in fact the mere result of seeking her own gratification alike in meeting or avoiding her connexions. If she saw this, she has understanding sufficient to work it out of her; but she weighs nothing sufficiently to dive into her own self. She knows she is a very clever girl, and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... their intercourse a certainty of power and promise of greater power. Silly people fill the world with lamentation over human inconstancy; but if we follow love, we cannot cling to the beloved. We must love onward, and only when our friends go before us can we be true both to friendship and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... which, often celebrated by the poets, were especially calculated to foment his own rapidly developing fancy. He fell in love, was accepted, and ultimately cast off—incidents which afforded him opportunities of celebrating the charms, and deploring the inconstancy of the fair. He composed a poem, of fifteen hundred lines, entitled "Mahomet, or the Hegira," and performed the extraordinary mental effort of retaining the whole on his memory, at the period being unable to write. "The Retrospect," a poem of more matured ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his destiny. There was something about him which looked as if he would not take bullying kindly. He had also the advantage of being acquainted with most of those ingenious devices by which the proverbial inconstancy of fortune is steadied to something more nearly approaching fixed laws, and the dangerous risks which have so often led young men to ruin and suicide are practically reduced to somewhat less than nothing. So that Mr, Richard Venner worked off his nervous energies without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... was not half so deeply grounded as he had led the unsuspecting object of it to believe. That he really loved her was to some extent true. That his love was earnest and pure, such as the blight of coldness and inconstancy would render painful, was not true,—far from it. He had sought her hand, not to lay at her feet the offering of a hallowed affection, but to realize the object we have before mentioned,—to enable him, by the possession of her ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... Realm without their resolution; and for my assurance I have the handwritings of many; and therefore if I should move the same question again, what else should I do but either show my own ignorance and forgetfulness, or else inconstancy?" {241c} He therefore said that his opponents might themselves "write and complain upon him," and so learn "the plain minds" of the learned—but nobody took the trouble. Knox's defence was worded with the skill of a notary. He said that he had "heard the judgments" ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... seemed to spread a gloom over the village; those who would not venture to go were sullen and melancholy, and the woman were crying and imploring the Great Spirit to protect their warriors as if they were going to certain destruction: yet such is the wavering inconstancy of these savages, that captain Lewis's party had not gone far when they were joined by ten or twelve more warriors, and before reaching the creek which they had passed on the morning of the 13th, all the men of the nation ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... shepherdess, stands out in the midst of all other women, an imperial queen! a queen of beauty, grace, and fascination! This charming, innocent, and modest young woman belongs to me; she is my wife; and I have your inconstancy to thank you for this rare gem. Oh, madame, I have indeed reason to forgive you for the past, to be grateful to you as long as I live. But for you I should never have married the Princess Wilhelmina. What no menaces, no entreaties, no commands of the king could accomplish, your faithlessness ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... value of a distant advantage is always small; but when there is great room to doubt whether a distant advantage will be any advantage at all, the present value sink to almost nothing. Such is the inconstancy of the public taste that no sensible man will venture to pronounce, with confidence, what the sale of any book published in our days will be in the years between 1890 and 1900. The whole fashion of thinking ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... as she had gone on Christmas Eve to renounce her lover and to bless her rival. This time it was a new confession she went to make, and a confession that involved some shame. There is nothing so hard to confess as inconstancy; and every woman is not so philosophic as Rahel Varnhagen, who declared that to be constant was not always to love the same person, but always to love ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of the lines, the rigidity of the nose, the form of the bony structure which wounds alone had slightly altered,—all were signs of intrepidity without calculation, faith without reserve, obedience without discussion, fidelity without compromise, love without inconstancy. In him, the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... The scholars of Accursius, of Bartolus, of Cujacius, should blush for their accumulated guilt, unless they dare to dispute his right of binding the authority of his successors and the native freedom of the mind. But the Emperor was unable to fix his own inconstancy; and while he boasted of renewing the exchange of Diomede, of transmuting brass into gold, discovered the necessity of purifying his gold from the mixture of baser alloy. Six years had not elapsed from the publication of the Code before he condemned the imperfect attempt by a new and more ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... by sense; perhaps the physical charm of beauty is limited, while the moral charm of a woman without beauty is infinite. Is not this the moral of the fable on which the Arabian Nights are based? An ugly wife of Henry VIII. might have defied the axe, and subdued to herself the inconstancy of her master. ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... death-dirge should have been written by the one and set to music by the other—brothers doloroso, sent into this rough world unprepared for its buffets, passing away in manhood's morning. Yet all heard the song of the skylark. Giorgione died broken-hearted, through his ladylove's inconstancy. He was exactly the same age as Titian, and while he lived surpassed that giant far, as the giant himself admitted. He died aged thirty-three, the age at which a full dozen of the greatest men of the world have died, and the age at which several other very ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... government and ousted Ippolito de' Medici, another bastard, and the very Alessandro with whom, at the later period of which we are now writing, he was travelling to Livorno. Having completed this change of government, he became alarmed at the evident inconstancy of the people of Florence, and, fearing the vengeance of Clement VII., he went to Lyon to superintend a vast house of business he owned there, which corresponded with other banking-houses of his own in Venice, Rome, France, and Spain. Here we find a strange thing. These men who ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... inconstancy and unkindness of a lover, I hope, a true and plain relation of my misfortunes may be of use and warning to credulous maids, never to put too ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... had amused so many. In the study of human nature, Fourier believed he discovered inherently inconstant natures, exceptional men and women, who cannot be constant to one idea, one hope or one love; and believing that this inconstancy was a normal trait of character with some persons, who are the exceptions to the general rule, simply and honestly acknowledged the fact, and speculated on the result and the position such persons would have in ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... living together impracticable, or desertion, constitutes a reason for divorce from the wife's point of view." The English reviewer here adds that "since no treatment can be worse nor any insult grosser than open inconstancy on the part of a husband, it is conceivable that a judge might consider that such conduct renders living together impracticable. But in the presence of an explicit provision with regard to the wife's adultery and in the absence of any such provision with regard ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... thought that it might be the subject of the consultation. The suspicion, however, if there had ever been any, quickly vanished. The symptoms entirely changed twelve hours later, and the next day the sick man felt pains quite the opposite of those which had previously distressed him. This very inconstancy of the distemper served to puzzle the doctor's conclusions. Sauvresy, in these latter days, had scarcely suffered at all, he said, and had slept well at night; but he had, at times, strange and often distressing sensations. He was evidently failing hourly; he was ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct with unusual severity: that the very vicissitudes and shiftings of Ministerial measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy and want of system, would be taken as an occasion of charging us with a predetermined discontent, which nothing could satisfy; whilst we accused every measure of vigor as cruel, and every proposal of lenity as weak and irresolute. The public, he said, would not have patience to ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... Inconstancy of False Religion, 34 Fruitfulness of True Piety, 34 Fruits of the True and False Professor contrasted, 35 Fruit-bearing the test of Christian Character, 36 The Fruits of the Spirit, 36 Love, as in the Experience of David, 37 Manifested in willing Obedience, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... upon my knees in a tremor of fear. I pulled from my bosom a little book like the one Leperello exhibits in the opera of "Don Giovanni." There, I said, was a record of my flirtation and inconstancy. I waited long for the decision, but it ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... delicate a scrutiny by a thread of fiction. The outward body of it matters little. The essential point is to remember that such things were not caused, as they try to persuade us, by human fickleness, by the inconstancy of our fallen nature, by the chance persuasions of desire. There was needed the deadly pressure of an age of iron, of cruel needs: it was needful that Hell itself should seem a shelter, an asylum, by contrast with the ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... evil of the materialists is inconsiderable besides the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental philosophy of Sterne and his numerous imitators. The vilest appetites and the most remorseless inconstancy towards their objects, acquired the titles of the "heart," "the irresistible feelings," "the too-tender sensibility"; and if the frosts of prudence, the icy chain of human law, thawed and vanished at the genial warmth of human nature, who could help ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... that, for the first time, he experienced the inconstancy of fortune. An Austrian army under Charles of Lorraine threatened his communications with Silesia. Saxony was all in arms behind him. He found it necessary to save himself by a retreat. He afterwards owned that his failure was the natural ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... must be very ingeniously manag'd, or 'twill be intolerable. There is a cunning Thought in Tasso, that may perhaps let the Reader something into the Manner in which I would have it order'd. A Female Warriour, opposed to her Lover in Aims, for his Inconstancy shoot's a Dart at him, yet wishes it may not ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... who is alike her Prophet, Priest, and King, for love is strong as death; and jealousy, or ardent love, retentive as the grave. Not that she doubts the constancy of her Beloved, but that she has learned, alas! the inconstancy of her own heart; and she would be bound to the heart and arm of her Beloved as with chains and settings of gold, ever the emblem of divinity. Thus the Psalmist prayed, "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... frolic carried rather too far; perhaps we may see in it the outrances of another age, the Eighteenth Century pushed to extremes; it harks back to the Musketeers; it is an exploit stolen from Champcenetz; nay, such light-hearted inconstancy takes us back to the festooned and ornate period of the old court of the Valois. In an age as moral as the present, we are bound to regard audacity of this kind sternly; still, at the same time that 'cornet of sugar-plums' may ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... even a slight, imperceptible wind, traveling about two miles an hour, is capable, when the windows and doors of a room are open, of changing the air of a room 528 times in one hour. Air passes also through brick and stone walls. The objections to winds as a sole mode of ventilation are their inconstancy and irregularity. When the wind is very slight its ventilating influence is very small; on the other hand, when the wind is strong it cannot be utilized as a means of ventilation on account of the air currents being too strong and ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various
... we wanted money, I had only to write to her; and that she would send me all I could desire. They talked in Paris of printing an account of the sacrifice I had made, and inserting in it the miracle of my sudden recovery. I don't know what prevented it; but such is the inconstancy of the creature, that this journey, which drew upon me at that time so much applause, has served for a pretext for the strange condemnation which ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... Constance had quadrupled; at the least; his house she had rendered the most brilliant in London, and his name the most courted in the lists of the peerage. Though munificent, she was not extravagant; though a beauty, she did not intrigue; neither, though his inconstancy was open, did she appear jealous; nor, whatever the errors of his conduct, did she ever disregard his interest, disobey his wishes, or waver from the smooth and continuous sweetness of her temper. Of such a wife Lord Erpingham could not complain: he esteemed her, praised her, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... world! how dark and ignorant, void of understanding!" And then to give his followers chance of rest, he bade them each repose where'er they list, whilst he beneath the shadow of a Gambu tree, gracefully seated, gave himself to thought. He pondered on the fact of life and death, inconstancy, and endless progress to decay. His heart thus fixed without confusion, the five senses covered and clouded over, lost in possession of enlightenment and insight, he entered on the first pure state of ecstasy. ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... various as light change, Now speaking courtlike, friendly, straight as strange, She's any humour's perfect parasite, Displeas'd with her, and pleas'd with her delight. She is the echo of inconstancy, Soothing her no with nay, her ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 404, December 12, 1829 • Various
... weakly permitted myself to be forced, with this secret on my conscience, into a marriage with the Duke of Hereward. And now I dare not tell him the truth! And now my first husband has come back and hates me for my inconstancy, and my second husband knows nothing about it! Now to whom do I rightly belong! To whom do I owe duty? To Waldemar? To the duke? Who knows? Not I! One thing only is clear to me, that I must not live with either of them as a wife, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... in the early times of history, and find calculation and history in harmony. Anomalies and perturbations in the planets have been over and over again observed; but these, instead of demonstrating any inconstancy on the part of natural law, have invariably been reduced to consequences of that law. Instead of referring the perturbations of Uranus to any interference on the part of the Author of nature with the law of gravitation, the question which the astronomer proposed to himself ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... coquette with his subject, and after a year's absence from the laboratory he joined the Oriental Society, and delivered a paper on the Hieroglyphic and Demotic inscriptions of El Kab, thus giving a crowning example both of the versatility and of the inconstancy of his talents. ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... last stanza shows very pleasingly the faithfulness of father and children, in contrast to the inconstancy ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... on pinions fleet, And youth in beauty effloresces, The joy that finds itself complete In honeyed words and soft caresses, Alas! an index seems to be Of perilous inconstancy. ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard |
