"Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wanton bold, Nor feverish drought distress us, But he that compasseth heat and cold Shall temper them both to ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, These many summers in ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... companions of the man who carried the greenstone blade, we worked our way for about one hundred yards through the leafy maze before attempting to search for it, and that search proved a long and tiresome one. It is impossible to describe the network of wanton vegetation through which we struggled during the hot afternoon. Every kind of shrub and tree was woven into an ungodly tangle by the crawling, leaping vines that shut out the sky and made it impossible to see a person standing only a ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... because Cybele had done so in her grief for the death of Attis, but really perhaps for the same reason which induced the women of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept for Tammuz. To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised and broken body of the god. Or the fast may possibly have been a preparation for a ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... her abed with a new-acquainted knave. But God, loving her more tenderly than to suffer her to fall into such shameful beastly sin, sendeth her in season a goodly fair fervent fever, that maketh her bones to rattle and wasteth away her wanton flesh. And it beautifieth her fair skin with the colour of a kite's claw, and maketh her look so lovely that her love would have little pleasure to look upon her. And it maketh her also so lusty that if her lover lay in ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... had rent the Liberal party once; the Irish Question of 1886 had rent it again; and now for the third time it was rent by the South African Question. Holding that the South African War was a wanton crime against freedom and humanity, I wished that my leader could declare himself unequivocally against it, but he felt bound to consider the interests of the Liberal party as a whole rather than those of any particular section which he might personally favour. As the campaign ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... all the fortunes of my life hereafter, Yon little tree, yon blooming Apricocke; How I would spread and fling my wanton armes In at her window! I would bring her fruit Fit for ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... instances Hazlitt was consciously the aggressor, but his attacks were never wanton. He denounced Wordsworth and Coleridge and Southey because they were renegades from the cause which lay nearest to his heart. Their apostasy was an unforgivable offence in his eyes, and his wrath was proportioned to the admiration ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... childhood and dewy as the dawn, but the deep sullen red of a city swept with flames. Her breasts are not like young roes that feed among the lilies, but ivory hemispheres threaded with purple fire and tinged with sunset's tawny gold. Reverently as though touching divinity's robe, Joseph caresses the wanton curls that stream like an inky storm-cloud over the shapely shoulders—he puts the little hands, heavy with costly gems, back from the tearful face and holds them with a grasp so fierce that the massy rings of beaten gold bruise the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... any violence, no matter what the issue. Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... let th' "dank wynd" moan, "Shimmer th' woold" and "rive the wanton surge;" I ask not much; grant but an "eery drone," Some "wilding frondage" and a "bosky dirge;" Grant me but these, and add a regal flush Of "sundered hearts upreared upon a byre;" Throw in some yearnings and a "darksome hush," And—asking nothing ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... dear woman," said the countess, smiling. "The king will certainly be glad to have two horses left, especially if they always draw him in the right way. But it was no wanton arrogance on our part to take so many horses; we did so only on account of the bad roads, and in order to travel as rapidly ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... life. For, as has been said, in the practice of fasting, watching and labor, we are not to look upon the works in themselves, not on the days, not on the number, not on the food, but only on the wanton and lustful Adam, that through them he may be cured of ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... most wholesome, when nature has perfected her work, and prepared it for human sustenance. To anticipate her seasons, or to prolong them, is a misapplication of labour, and a perversion of the bounties of providence into secret poisons, to indulge the wanton cravings of a depraved appetite. The properties of animal food in general seem not to restrict the use of it to any particular season, but rather to admit its common use at all times. The only period in which it is less seasonable than at any other, appears to be in hot weather, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... They were both very young, and happened one day to be playing near the looking-glass, which stood on their mother's toilet. The Boy, pleased with the novelty of the thing, viewed himself for some time, and in a wanton, roguish manner observed to the Girl how handsome he was. She resented the insult, and ran immediately to her father, and, with a great deal of aggravation, complained of her brother, particularly ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... details to attract the eye; no gorgeous colour-patterns or pleasing irregularities of form; the frosted beauty of the scene appeals rather to the intelligence. Contrasted with the wanton blaze of green, the contorted trunks and labyrinthine shadow-meanderings of our woodlands, these palm groves, despite their frenzied exuberance, figure forth the idea of reserve and chastity; an impression which is heightened ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... he turn'd and look'd as keenly at her As careful robins eye the delver's toil; And that within her, which a wanton fool, Or hasty judger would have call'd her guilt, Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall. And Geraint look'd and was ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... too call it selfe whom agein? How many yeares doeth loue, anger, spite, sensualitie, excesse, and ambition, trouble and prouoke the mynde? How many doo wee see, whiche euen from their youth, too their latter dais neuer awake nor repet them of the drunkennes, of ambitio, nigardnes, wanton lust, & riatte? Spu. I haue knowen ouermany of that sorte. Hedo. You haue grauted that false and fayned good || thinges, are not too bee estemed for the pure and godly. Sp. And I affirme that still. Hedo. Nor that there is no true and perfect pleasure, except it bee taken ...
— A Very Pleasaunt & Fruitful Diologe Called the Epicure • Desiderius Erasmus
... Benoit for its protection, the remainder of the troops to return to Montreal. The utmost compassion and consideration should be felt for the families of the sufferers plunged into affliction by the reckless conduct of their relatives; every house injured or destroyed at St. Benoit was a wanton destruction, perpetrated in defiance of guards placed to protect property." Thus writes Lord Seaton. Colonel Hanson, after quoting the above, proceeds to state that the evidence before the commissioners proves that "immediately after ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... disputing that our present civilization does discourage much of the innate bestiality of man; that it helps people to a measure of continence, cleanliness and mutual toleration; that it does much to suppress brute violence, the spirit of lawlessness, cruelty and wanton destruction. But on the other hand it does also check and cripple generosity and frank truthfulness, any disinterested creative passion, the love of beauty, the passion for truth and research, and it stimulates avarice, parsimony, overreaching, usury, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... when the lower powers were entirely subject to reason. Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26): "We must be far from supposing that offspring could not be begotten without concupiscence. All the bodily members would have been equally moved by the will, without ardent or wanton incentive, with ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... adventures besides having been a nun: there is something mysterious, taciturn and criminal in her unhurried speech, in the evasive glance of her deep and dark-gold eyes from under the long, lowered eyelashes, in her manners, her sly smiles and intonations of a modest but wanton would-be saint. There was one occurrence when the girls, with well-nigh reverent awe, heard that Tamara could talk fluently in French and German. She has within her some sort of an inner, restrained power. Notwithstanding ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... easy, only too easy, on the surface to feel that if she wanted to be gay and wanton, living for the hour, it was no one's affair but her own. She fought the question out in her mind. She fixed her determination on the young and, in one sense, inexperienced newspaper man whose ambitions ...
— The River Prophet • Raymond S. Spears
... cared nothing for popularity, but he resented losing his standing in the community. And all along he was convinced that he was right; that the Belgians had lied. There had been, in the Germany he had left, no such will to wanton killing. These people were ignorant. Out of the depths of their ignorance ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as the revelation is concerned, we are far richer than the patriarchs. But their devotion to a comparatively inferior revelation was greater; they were lovers of the bridegroom. We, on the other hand, are that fat, bloated, wanton servant, Deut 32, 15; for we have the Word and are overwhelmed ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... but a wanton maiden, The plaything of thy idle hours; But laughing streams with gold are laden, And sweets are hidden ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... WMD. A new deterrence calculus combines the need to deter terrorists and supporters from contemplating a WMD attack and, failing that, to dissuade them from actually conducting an attack. Traditional threats may not work because terrorists show a wanton disregard for the lives of innocents and in some cases for their own lives. We require a range of deterrence strategies that are tailored to the situation and the adversary. We will make clear that terrorists and those who aid or sponsor ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... share of that war, let reverence to the dead and respect to the living prevent us from reading lessons of this kind at their expense. I don't know how far the author may find himself at liberty to wanton on that subject; but, for my part, I entered into a coalition which, when I had no longer a duty relative to that business, made me think myself bound in honor not to call it up without necessity. But if ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... public act was alleged adultery, as her last is alleged bigamy.... The evidence produced before the Consistory Court is of the most clear and convincing nature, and proves that the character of this lady (whose fame has become so disgustingly notorious) has been from an early date that of a mere wanton, alike unmindful of the sacred ties of matrimony and utterly careless of the opinion of the world ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... "Enough of this wanton folly," she said with a touch of sternness. "Listen, Holly. Thou art a good and honest man, and I fain would spare thee; but, oh! it is so hard for woman to be merciful. I have said I am not for thee, therefore let thy thoughts pass by me like an ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... burn the human breast; What wild desires like prisoned birds Impel the heart from east to west; What urgings baffling words Beat up from nature unexpressed Till soul distinct stands manifest, On guard for heaven, or, wanton, hurled Toward judgment ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... guarded his people, whether free or bond, from personal violence. If in vindictiveness, a man with an unlawful weapon, maimed his own slave by knocking out his eye, or his tooth, the slave was to be free for this wanton act of personal violence, as a penalty upon the master.—Exod. xxi: 26 to 27, inclusive. But for the same offense, committed against a free person, the offender had to pay an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, as the penalty.—Levit. xxiv: 19, 20, and Exod. xxi: 24 ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... with the horror of it, but for the first time it came to him: Briscoe had provoked his own death. He had physically attacked the Lhari—threatened them, goaded them to shoot him down in self-defense! "I've been on shipboard with them for months. They're not wanton murderers." ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... memory doth wanton with me these days," said Tom. "But mind it not—I mend apace—a little clue doth often serve to bring me back again the things and names which had escaped me. (And not they, only, forsooth, but e'en such as I ne'er heard before—as this lad shall ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Bora Bora were Christians; but he was a heathen, the only unbeliever on the island, a gross materialist, who believed that when he died he was dead. He believed merely in fair play and square dealing. Petty meanness, in his code, was almost as serious as wanton homicide; and I do believe that he respected a murderer more than a man given ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... occurred,—still no breach of the peace, no disturbance. The language, indeed, became gradually more seditious—more daring and ferocious: but, as an attempt to put down the first meeting by force would have been considered a wanton act of oppression, and a direct interference with the subject's right to petition, it became a very difficult practical question, at what moment any legal notice could be taken by prosecution, or executive notice by proclamation, to put down ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... has the advantage that its discipline is the discipline of impersonal necessity, not that of wanton personal coercion. The eagerness of children in our industrial districts to escape from school to the factory is not caused by lighter tasks or shorter hours in the factory, nor altogether by the temptation of wages, ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... their temples, even in ruins, beautiful beyond the day-dream of our modern architects; some of them, till bold and sacrilegious hands despoiled them, adorned with sculptures which, surviving the destruction of the people who raised them, the wanton rage of barbarous enemies, and the inroads of the elements for near two thousand years, sill remain, in their decay, the wonder and admiration of the world, the models of modern sculptors, and the greatest treasure of art ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... too," said Lucien, "because the least necessary. The other creatures were but following out their instincts to procure food, whereas Basil's only motive was one of wanton destruction." ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... her I'm a wanton Sufi (what a Sufi really is She may know, perhaps—I count it one of ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... with these no doubt wanton reflections on the unfair division of opportunities in human life, I was leisurely crossing the common, and presently I came up with a pedestrian who, though I had little suspected it as I caught sight of him ahead, was ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... agree with Sir H. Nicolas that the lines in question are "a wanton interpolation," I think Mr. Hannah was perfectly justified in contenting himself with this acknowledgment ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. • Various
... different kinds. I found a great crowd surrounding a party who were dancing, by the light of some large fires, to the music of four drums, which were beat with great exactness and uniformity. The dances, however, consisted more in wanton gestures than in muscular exertion or graceful attitudes. The ladies vied with each other in displaying the most ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... ocean, with the adorable Celestina's marriage-portion, consisting of the snug sum of fifty thousand dollars, wrapped up in a blue netting-purse in his coat pocket. How the great bank-bills grinned at him, as if to charge him with the wanton robbery and desertion! He gazed around in a bewildered manner, and the first face that met his eye was that of his brother-in-law, Jack Camford, who advanced with a woeful smile distorting his fine features, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... feats of archery, of bull-baiting, and other popular amusements were to be practiced, for the more immediate amusement of the populace. In this manner did Prince John endeavor to lay the foundation of a popularity which he was perpetually throwing down by some inconsiderate act of wanton aggression upon the feelings and prejudices ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... greatest with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serving: nothing stands alone; The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. Has God, thou fool! worked solely for thy Thy good, Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food? Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spread the flowery lawn: Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings? Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings. Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat? Loves of his own and raptures swell ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... "Shoot, wanton!" said I. "Shoot, lest I beat you again for the vile, shameless thing you are." At this she flinched and her fierce eyes wavered; then she ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... muse was timorous as a chicken. The metaphor is entirely metaphorical. Jones had no faith in the wanton. He believed in regular hours, in silence and no interruptions. No intrusions of any kind. A letter was an intrusion, so also was the news of the day. These things he considered, when he did consider ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... asked myself, sir, a great many times over in the last twenty-four hours. Perhaps Mr. Smith could answer that best. Though—er—I think the shell was blown through the blowpipe to clear the deadly fumes from the room by its explosion, before any one else should suffer. Smith is, at least, not a wanton slaughterer." ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... angrily. "I am going to talk plain to you. You are a fool, a downright, empty-headed silly fool. What you have destroyed in wanton carelessness would have kept the life in a man a whole day. Haven't you sense enough to see it's going to be nip and tuck if we ever get out of this? You've shown yourself, from start to finish, a miserable cheat; ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... cove was out of the question. The strictest orders had been given for every one to keep concealed, a task that was by no means difficult, the whole plain being environed with woods, and its elevation more than a thousand feet above the sea. In short, nothing but a wanton exposure of the person, could render it possible for one on the water to get a glimpse of another on the heights ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... in this world, contended the speaker, was untruth. A sermon was as immoral as any stage play if the soul of it was not Truth; and a stage play became as moral as a sermon if its soul was truth. The special form of untruth he attacked was what he styled "the drama of the glorified wanton." Warmly and ably did he denounce the pernicious effect of those plays, that take the wanton for a heroine and sentimentalise her into a morbid attractiveness. The stage should show life, and the wanton, being of life, might be portrayed; but let it be with ruthless ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... fell in graceful folds about her exquisite form. She held a Book of Hours in her hand, but she had not once opened it since she sat down. Her dark eyes looked not soft, nor kindly, but bright, defiant, wanton, and even wicked in their expression, like the eyes of an Arab steed, whipped, spurred, and brought to a desperate leap—it may clear the wall before it, or may dash itself dead against the stones. Such was the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... vertuous love." But now-a-days, continues the old knight, little suspecting that his grievance is one of all ages, men cannot love seven-night but they must have all their desires. The old love was not so. Men and women could love together seven years, and no wanton lusts were between them, and then was love truth and faithfulness. "And loo," Malory adds forgetting that his Lancelot and his Tristan waited much less than seven years, "in lyke wyse was used love ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... told of sensations too deep for tears. 'No, Owen, it has not left me; and I will be honest. I own now to you, without any disguise of words, what last night I did not own to myself, because I hardly knew of it. I love Edward Springrove with all my strength, and heart, and soul. You call me a wanton for it, don't you? I don't care; I have gone beyond caring for anything!' She looked stonily into his face and made the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... the Hsia seasons, drive in the chariot of Yin, wear the head-dress of Chou, take for music the Shao and its dance. Banish the strains of Cheng and flee men that are glib; for the strains of Cheng are wanton and glib speakers ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... roses, soft as vair, Round sylvan statues and the old Stone dial—Pompadours, that wear Their royalty of purple and gold With wanton air.... ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... shine with such a movement in the veritable sky; yet nothing but deep water, seeming still in its incessant flight and rebound, could really show such altered stars. The flood lets a constellation fly, as Juliet's "wanton" with a tethered bird, only to pluck it home again. At moments some rhythmic flux of the water seems about to leave the darkly- set, widely-spaced Bear absolutely at large, to dismiss the great stars, and refuse ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... both cynical and inadequate for the "ambush" by which French and English blood had been spilt. Similarly the internecine strife of 2 December and the subsequent proceedings against the Venizelists were depicted as a wanton hunt of harmless and law-abiding citizens. Day by day the stream of calumny, assiduously fed from the fountain-head at Salonica, grew in volume and virulence; and King Constantine was branded with every opprobrious epithet ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... think the practice of scalping an enemy, generally indulged in by the Sioux, is a wanton desire cruelly to mutilate the foe. Such is not the case at all; he is prompted solely by the desire of procuring proof of his success, and he will take more chances to get a scalp than he would for any other ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... mournfulness profound, Unfathomable to plummet cast by man? Alas; for who can tell! Whence comes the wind Heaving the ocean into maddened arms That clutch and dash huge vessels on the rocks, And scatter them, as if compacted slight As little eggs boys star against a tree In wanton mischief? Whence, detestable, To man, who suffers from the monster-jaws, The power that in the logging crocodiles' Outrageous bulk puts evil fire of life? That spouts from mountain-pyramids a flood Of lava, overwhelming works and men In burning, fetid ruin?—The power that stings ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... and our path was strewn with flowers. And now! Now we came two fugitives from the vengeance of the Teules, I borne in a litter by four tired soldiers, while Otomie, the princess of this people, still clad in her wanton's robe, at which the women mocked, for she had been able to come by no other, tramped at my side, since there were none to carry her, and the inhabitants of the place cursed us as the authors of their woes. Nor did we know if they ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... must have committed some open and ascertainable violation of the principles of military science. So far is this from being the case, that military history is full of examples in which the highest merit and resolution of a commander have been nullified or cheated by the wanton interferences of physical nature, or by acts on the part of subordinates admittedly beyond the control of any ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... community, or to any of their domestic or social customs." Even if the Mormons had so construed it, the rebuke of their lack of patriotism would have aroused their resentment, and Bernhisel, in a letter to President Fillmore, characterized it as "a wanton insult." ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... There is a sect in India, the members of which are so scrupulous regarding the sanctity of life that they carefully brush every step of the path in front of them, lest they should inadvertently step upon any creeping thing. In this, they lift the burden of responsibility from themselves for any wanton injury; but the microscope has shown us that there is a countless world of infinitesimal life all around us, and that it is practically impossible to draw a breath, or drink a mouthful of water, without destroying some living thing. If we ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... ominous in the extreme. The cynical dishonesties and the brutal spoliations which have come to light in the realm of high finance and big business are the natural fruit of such a manner of life as many of our recent novelists have vividly portrayed. And the wanton extravagance of the House of Mirth would not exist if the majority of the people did not admire it. The outcry against it is oftener the voice of envy than of moral revulsion. The cure for this evil, as of most others, is found in public opinion; and the church must educate public opinion ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... was upon him and he longed to be alone. Some sorrows are so personal they cannot be shared. Nor was it all sorrow. There was the passion of a fierce resentment, the bitter protest of helpless nature against a wanton ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... insincerity, of which the politics of that period in America had offered many examples. It may seem incredible, but it contained no word of slavery, but recited in dignified terms how the South had been driven to separation by "wanton aggression on the part of others," and after it had "vainly endeavoured to secure tranquillity." The new Southern Congress now resolved to take over the forts and other property in the seceded States that had belonged to the Union, and the first Confederate ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... Miss Norah Hood, he found himself shaking hands with a grave young person of unassertive beauty. Hers was the loveliness of the violet, which is apt to pall in this modern day—to aggravate, and to suggest wanton waste. For feminine loveliness is on the wane— marred, like many other good things, by over-education. Norah Hood was a typical country parson's daughter, who knew the right and did it, ignored the wrong and refused to ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... calumny at the hands of some sciolist or Halb-bildung sheltering his miserable individuality under the shadow (may it never be less!) of " King We," simply sins against himself as the Arabs say and offends good manners by holding out a premium to wanton aggression and injurious doing. The reading world has a right to hear the alteram partem before it shall deliver that judgment and shall pronounce that sentence wherefrom lies no appeal. To ignore and not to visit with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Only there were rather too many specifics in those days. For if one has "an excellent approved remedy" that never fails, it seems unnecessary to print a list of twenty others for the same purpose. This is wanton excess; it is gilding the golden pill, and throwing fresh perfume on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... you all about them," Said a little wanton boy, "For 'twas I that had the pleasure ...
— Frank and Fanny • Mrs. Clara Moreton
... another shadow flits, Which shows a bolder aspect than the gay Impassioned votaries of Nature wear. Mark his majestic port, his eagle eye, The stern erection of his haughty brow, Partially shaded by the snowy plumes That lightly wave and wanton in the breeze.— Is this a pensioner of hope?—Is this A dreamer of wild dreams?—All eyes are turned To gaze upon him, as with measured step The weaponed warrior slowly passes by.— Oh, this is one of War's tremendous sons, ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie
... of his own temperament he seemed able to generate a kind of atmosphere and texture in his daily life which was rich and warm, splendid really in thought (the true reality) if not in fact, and most grateful to all. Yet also, as I have said, always he wished to seem the clown, the scapegrace, the wanton and the loon even, mouthing idle impossibilities at times and declaring his profoundest faith in the most ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... upon Constantinople. The annals of those days, which seem to be credible, state that he floated down the Dnieper with ten thousand barges, and spread his sails upon the waves of the Euxine. Entering the Bosporus, he landed on both shores of that beautiful strait, and, with the most wanton barbarity, ravaged the country far and near, massacring the inhabitants, pillaging the towns and committing all the buildings to ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... seem to echo through the whole country. They are then loosened, get upon their legs again, and like so many branded Cains, are driven out into the country, to make way for others. Such roaring, such shouting, such an odour of singed hair and biftek au naturel, such playing of music, and such wanton risks as were ran by ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... grieve that it does not; and since selfishness and ill-will seem to him quite gratuitous, his ire is aroused; he thinks them unnatural and monstrous. He could not in the least understand evil, even when he did it himself; all villainy seemed to him wanton, all lust frigid, all hatred insane. All was an abomination alike that was not the lovely spirit ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... with unconfined wings, Hovers within my gates, And my divine Althea brings To whisper at my grates; When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered in her eye; The birds that wanton in the air Know ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... and body after a'—And see if I dinna gie a proper sorting to yon twa silly jauds that gard me mak a bogle of you, and a fule of mysell—Ghaists! my certie, I sall ghaist them—If they had their heads as muckle on their wark as on their daffing, they wad play nae sic pliskies—it's the wanton steed that scaurs at the windle-strae—Ghaists! wha e'er heard of ghaists in an honest house? Naebody need fear bogles that has a conscience void of offence.—But I am blithe that MacTurk hasna murdered ye when a' is ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... feeling something under him, he snatched out his sword and thrust it through the unfortunate lord. The barbarism of the times is most shockingly displayed in the brutal manner in which he treats the dead body; but for the honour of the Danish prince, we must suppose that it was not merely a wanton act, but done the more decidedly to convince the king, when the strange situation of the corpse was seen, how absolutely he must be divested of reason. Being assured he was now alone with his mother, in a most awful manner he turns upon her, and avows his madness to be assumed; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... Cherokee Nation in July, 1791, would have prevented a repetition of such depredations; but the event has not answered this hope. The Chickamaugas, aided by some banditti of another tribe in their vicinity, have recently perpetrated wanton and unprovoked hostilities upon the citizens of the United States in that quarter. The information which has been received on this subject will be laid before you. Hitherto defensive precautions only have been strictly ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George Washington • George Washington
... at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence, ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... subject of congratulation that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the bank found itself powerless and no longer able to loan out its surplus means. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... love with unconfined wings hovers within my gates; And my divine Althea brings to whisper at the grates; When I lie tangled in her hair and fetter'd to her eye; The gods that wanton in the air, ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... to haste my carcase hence: Youth stole away and felt no kind of joy, And age he left in travail ever since; The wanton days that made me nice and coy Were but a dream, a shadow, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... number of slain seals to exceed two hundred, and I was shocked and frightened because of the madness of slaughter that had possessed me. I had sinned by wanton wastefulness, and after I had duly refreshed myself with this good wholesome food, I set about as well as I could to make amends. But first, ere the great task began, I returned thanks to that Being through whose mercy I had been so miraculously preserved. Thereupon I laboured until ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... must be distinguished from the wanton waste committed by army-stragglers, which is wrong, and can be punished by the death-penalty if proper testimony ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... exquisite musician, and sang with a powerful and sweet voice. One may imagine the delight of a lonely town-end, when Willie the packman and the piper made his appearance, with his stories, and jokes, and ballads, his songs, and reels, and "wanton wiles." ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... his hands, and also by the great preparations he was making to regain territory that he had lost. But it cannot be to the interest of the Company that the Nizam should use his increased power to be a scourge to his neighbours; and I can promise you that any wanton aggression, on his part, will be regarded with displeasure, and probably lead to their interference in ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... large bungalow, which, we afterwards learned, had been the commissioner's house, and as I went with my companion from room to room, which at one time must have been furnished in exquisite taste, there were traces of the wanton destruction of a savage mob. Furniture had been smashed, the floor was littered with the remains of mirrors and ornaments; curtains and carpets were torn to shreds, and everything that could be battered ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... it were woven, here and there, The golden threads of a maiden's hair, As the wanton wind with tosses and twirls Blew in and out of her floating curls, While her busy fingers swiftly drew The ivory ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... will tell you how much your witness is worth," said her father, beginning low, that his pent-up wrath might have room to swell out. "It only convinces me more and more how deep is the corruption this wanton has spread in my family. She has come amongst us with her innocent seeming, and spread her nets well and skilfully. She has turned right into wrong, and wrong into right, and taught you all to be uncertain whether there be any such ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate, In amorous ditties, all a summer day, While smooth Adonis, from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz, yearly wounded: the love tale Infected Zion's daughters with like heat; Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah.”—Par. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... love—but poems expressing the isolating passion of one sex for the other; chiefly in youth, or in conditions which resemble those of youth, whether moral or immoral. These celebrate the joys and sorrows, rapture and despair, changes and chances, moods, fancies, and imaginations, quips and cranks and wanton wiles, all the tragedy and comedy, of that passion, which is half of the sense and half of the spirit, sometimes wholly of the senses and sometimes wholly of the spirit. It began, in one form of it, among the lower animals ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... from the Hague, on conclusion of the Truce, to defray expenses incurred by them for board and lodging of servants, forage of horses, and the like-which had accidentally stopped at Barneveld's door and was forthwith sent on to John Spronssen, superintendent of such affairs. Passing over this wanton bit of calumny with disgust, he solemnly asserted that he had never at any period of his life received one penny nor the value of one penny from the King of Spain, the Archdukes, Spinola, or any other person connected with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as Fox told it, the story was irresistible. But it came as near to being a wanton insult as a reference to his Grace's own episode might. The red came slowly back into his eye. Fox stared vacantly, as was his habit when he had done or said something especially daring. And Comyn and I waited, straining and expectant, like boys who have prodded a wild beast and stand ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... not a care Victorious envied the conquered Virtue and ambition, unfortunately, seldom lodge together Virtue is a pleasant and gay quality Virtue is much strengthened by combats Virtue refuses facility for a companion Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age Voice and determination of the rabble, the mother of ignorance Vulgar reports and opinions that drive us on We are masters of nothing but the will We are not to judge of counsels by events We ask most when we bring ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... observable that where villages were shelled attempts were made to spare the peasants' houses, few of which were damaged, save by fires spreading from other buildings. Everywhere wanton destruction has obviously been avoided, and the percentage of towns in this zone where any damage whatever was done is small. The foregoing facts signify the restraint and soberness exercised both by the Cossacks and the following infantry. The natives were ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... gone, yielding to a spasm of justice, Asia cast it off into the waves. Its beauty is Circean. Almost from the beginning it has been the chosen place in which men ran rounds gay and grave, virtuous and wanton, foolish and philosophic, brave and cowardly—where love, hate, jealousy, avarice, ambition and envy have delighted to burn their lights before Heaven—where, possibly with one exception, Providence has more frequently come nearer lifting its veil ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... new nationality was forced on the Colonies by wanton aggressions on the local self-government. There was far from unanimity of opinion as to the acts, much less as to the ascribed purposes of the Ministry. Setting aside a class of no-party men in peace and of non-combatants ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... mistress! Your nectar throbbeth like a blacksmith's anvil. Master Moth, draw you these bristling lashes down, they mirk the stars and call yon nothing Quince to mind—a vain, official knave, in and out, to and fro, play or pleasure; and old Sam Snout, the wanton! Lad's days and all—'twas life, Tittany; and I was ever foremost. They'd bob and crook to me like spaniels at a trencher. Mine was the prettiest conceit, this way, that way, past all unravelling till envy stretched mine ears. Now I'm old dreams. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... scenes of glory rise Before my dazzled eyes! Young Zephyrs wave their wanton wings, And melody celestial rings: Along the lilied lawn the nymphs advance, Plush'd with love's bloom, and range the sprightly dance: The gladsome shepherds on the mountain-side, Array'd in all their rural pride, Exalt the festive ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... of Eveleth in her former marriage, and treating her as a foolish crank or an audacious flirt. The goodness of her life, her self-sacrifice and works of benevolence, counted for no more against these wanton attacks than the absolute inoffensiveness of my own; the writers knew no harm of her, and they knew nothing at all of me; but they devoted us to the execration of their readers simply because we formed apt and ready themes ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... myth of sun and dawn, Kuhn recognises a fire-myth. Roth, again (whose own name means red), far from thinking that Urvasi is 'the chaste dawn,' interprets her name as die geile, that is, 'lecherous, lascivious, lewd, wanton, obscene'; while Pururavas, as 'the Roarer,' suggests 'the Bull in rut.' In accordance with these views Roth explains the myth in a ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... Christians were especially subjected to this species of cruelty. Nero availed himself of the prejudice against them to turn aside popular indignation after the great conflagration of Rome, which is commonly ascribed to his own wanton love of mischief; and we learn from Tertullian, that, after great public misfortunes, the cry of the populace was, "To the lions with ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... "System" writhed under my attacks showed how seriously it was hurt. What surprises me was that so little intelligence was exhibited in defaming me. Such wanton, foolish attacks those that were made on me personally! As though it mattered who or what I am in comparison with the accusations I have made. Americans are not fools. To say that Lawson is this or that does not minimize ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... from his chair with a forcible oath. Jeff, too, was on his feet. There was a frantic clatter beyond the screen of creeper. A string of hoarse invective in a human voice. The hammering of horses' hoofs and the sound of tin being battered in a wanton riot. Dug broke into a great laugh as ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... signs of natives were seen—their visits to the immediate vicinity of the Cape appear to be made only at rare intervals; and the just chastisement bestowed upon them some years ago, in consequence of a wanton attack made upon a seining party will, probably, for some time to come, render them cautious of coming in contact with white men. While wading about among the tall grass, the long sharp awns of the prevailing kind, an Anthistiria, were more annoying than can be described, ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... declared. "It is malicious and wanton brutality, and I fancy I can lay my hands on the fellow who was at ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... and good-natured; but, used to live a scrambling, rakish course of life himself, he had not the least idea of the extent of Lord Glenvarloch's mental sufferings, and thought of his temporary concealment as if it were merely the trick of a wanton boy, who plays at hide-and-seek with his tutor. With the appearance of the place, too, he was familiar—but on his companion ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... modesty, a goodly broker! Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines? To whisper and conspire against my youth? Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth, And you an officer fit for the place. There, take the paper; see it be return'd; Or else return no more into ...
— The Two Gentlemen of Verona • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... questions by arbitration than by the keen-edged sword. International peace compacts can hold mankind together by unbreakable yet unburdensome bonds and greatly promote prosperity and social progress. The wanton woe and waste that inevitably follow in the train of war will soon be things of the past. The twentieth century, already so full of radiant promise, so enlivened by a new social conscience, will devote its collective energies to the abolition of war and the substitution of its successor—a ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... so delicately gay; And yonder belles, so'deck'd in thin array— Ah! rather see not what a decent pride Would teach a maiden modestly to hide; The dress so flimsy, the exposure such, "twould almost make a very wanton blush. E'en married dames, forgetting what is due To sacred ties, give half clad charms to view. What calls them forth to brave the daring glance, The public ball, the midnight wanton dance? There many a blooming nymph, by fashion led, Has felt her health, her peace, her honour fled; Truss'd her ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... had, by various wanton jokes, incurred the emperor's wrath before now, and he was accustomed to disarm it by some insinuating confession, so he answered him with a roguish smile, while raising his eyes to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... oft-repeated declaration that the Constitution was a "covenant with hell," which stood as the caption of a leading abolitionist paper of Boston. That signs of coming danger so visible, evidences of hostility so unmistakable, disregard of constitutional obligations so wanton, taunts and jeers so bitter and insulting, should serve to increase excitement in the South, was a consequence flowing as much from reason and patriotism as from sentiment. He must have been ignorant of human nature who did not expect such a tree to bear fruits ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis |
