"Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bosom of her family. I remember how you blamed, I dare say justly, the young women of the present day, who, under pretext of living happily with their husbands, begin by compliance, flattery, familiarity, an abandonment, you called it, a little too wanton (a word I did not fully understand), all of which, if I must believe you, are relays that lead rapidly to indifference and possibly to contempt. "Remember that you are a Grandlieu!" yes, I remember that ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... give a more perfect description of them than has hitherto been the case; should they cause any unknown species to be brought into public view, and thus add a little more to the page of natural history, it will please me much. But should they unfortunately tend to cause a wanton expense of life; should they tempt you to shoot the pretty songster warbling near your door, or destroy the mother as she is sitting on the nest to warm her little ones, or kill the father as he is bringing a mouthful of food for ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... potted beef and adamantine biscuits was shuddered at. The whole project was voted a wild-cat scheme (and Mr. Rhodes agreed). After the spartan bravery they had displayed for two months, the ladies regarded this new and wanton strain on their loyalty as inhuman. Their protest was loud and dignified; and when the women are concerned in a public protest the men are—oh, so mere! And the men in khaki were no exception to the rule; they were cowed, with all their munitions of war. They had ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... of yours, my lord?" and the contempt of the question was laden with a suggestion that smote Mr. Caryll hard. What she implied in wanton offensive mockery was no more than he alone present knew to be ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... as the beast felt himself thus relieved, he began to testify his joy and gratitude by every expression within his power. He jumped about like a wanton spaniel, wagged his enormous tail, and licked the feet and hands of his physician. Nor was he contented with these demonstrations of kindness; from this moment Androcles became his guest; nor did the lion ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... our story approaches the end, Which do you pity the most of us three? My friend, or the mistress of my friend With her wanton eyes, or me? ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... setting forth the praises of his schoolmaster Socrates (without all question the prince of philosophers), amongst other discourses to that purpose said that he resembled the Sileni. Sileni of old were little boxes, like those we now may see in the shops of apothecaries, painted on the outside with wanton toyish figures, as harpies, satyrs, bridled geese, horned hares, saddled ducks, flying goats, thiller harts, and other such counterfeited pictures, at pleasure, to excite people unto laughter, as Silenus himself, who was the foster-father of good Bacchus, was wont ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... to come anigh you?" he cried. "Hath she ventured to disquiet my friends, the wanton jade, the scheming—" and so on, pouring horrid words upon her that chilled my blood. 'T was terrible in him, that he could so swiftly change to these furies with one he had favoured, and to a rage frightful ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... surprising, with this fact before our eyes, that many agriculturists—indeed, I fear the majority—persist in the old-fashioned system of taking the flax to a watering-place with its valuable freight of seed unremoved, and plunge the sheaves under water, losing thereby, in the most wanton manner, rich feeding materials, worth from L1 to L3 ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... human nature from the degradation of ages of superstition and slavery. I may be wrong as to the facts of what occurred at Manchester; but, if they be what I have seen them stated, I can never repent speaking of them with indignation. When I cease to feel the injuries of others warmly, to detest wanton cruelty, and to feel my soul rise against oppression, I shall think myself ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... sign of timber. Foliage, of course, there was none. Cottonwood and willow in favored nooks along the Platte were just beginning to shoot forth their tiny pea-green tendrils in answer to the caressing touch of the May-day sunshine. April had been a month of storm and bluster and huge, wanton wastes of snow, whirling and drifting down from the bleak range that veiled the valley of the Laramie from the rays of the westering sun; and any one who chose to stroll out from the fort and climb the gentle slope to the bluffs on that ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... scorns the wind, And taller than the daughters of mankind Twas Artemis, close-girt in silver sheen, The Goddess of the woods, the Maiden-queen. Cold terror seized me, and mute awe, the while She oped her proud lips, with an icy smile— 'Whose votary art thou? Shall I resign 'To wanton Cypris this sworn nymph of mine? 'Have I enfeoffed thee of my holiest glen? 'To have thee tainted by the lips of men? 'Shall urchin Eros laugh at my decree? 'No Hymen torch, no loosened zone for thee I 'To-morrow, when my crescent tops yon oak, 'Thou shalt return unto ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... entered an elegant bed-chamber which adjoined it. It was the chamber of Josephine; and her full-length portrait hung upon the wall; there was her proud brow, her wanton eyes, her magnificent bust, uncovered, and seeming to swell with lascivious emotions. Everything was sumptuous, yet everything lacked that beautiful propriety which is so charming a characteristic of the arrangements of a virtuous woman—one whose purity of soul is mirrored in all that surrounds ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the fairies, has been commonly identified with pogge, the toad, which was believed to sit upon most of the unwholesome fungi; and the Champignon (or Paddock Stool) was said to owe its growth to "those wanton elves whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms." One of the "toad stoo's" (the Clathrus cancellatus) is said to produce cancerous sores if handled too freely. It has an abominably disgusting odour, and is therefore named the "lattice stinkhorn." ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... and cascades. As the wild wind rustled madly through the trees, it tore from their green boughs the first faded, yellow leaves which had lain concealed, like the first white hairs on the temples of a beautiful woman, and drove them here and there in wanton sport. One o these withered leaves fell at the feet of the king. He took it up and gazed at it. Pensively he drew near ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... each other in melancholy amazement. Such an evidence of wanton levity and of unworthiness of motive, in one who was intrusted with the gift of earthly government, pained their simple and upright minds; while old Mark, of still more decided and exaggerated ideas of spiritual perfection, distinctly groaned ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... industrious quest after knowledge; the merchant, in his dangerous voyages; the ambitious, in his passionate pursuit of honour; the conqueror, in his earnest desire of victory; the politician, in his deep-laid designs; the wanton, in his pleasing charms of beauty; the covetous, in his unwearied heaping-up of treasure; and the prodigal, in his general and extravagant indulgence.—Thus far it may be well;—but, so mistaken are we in our ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... strongly stirred the wrath of the austere sectaries. It is to be remarked that their antipathy to this sport had nothing in common with the feeling which has, in our own time, induced the legislature to interfere for the purpose of protecting beasts against the wanton cruelty of men. The Puritan hated bearbaiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Indeed, he generally contrived to enjoy the double pleasure of tormenting both spectators and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... schemes, is the man's ambition. Life is doing, not having. It is to gain the peak the climber strives, not to possess it. Fools marry thinking what they are going to get out of it: good store of joys and pleasure, opportunities for self-indulgence, eternal soft caresses— the wages of the wanton. The rewards of marriage are toil, duty, responsibility—manhood, womanhood. Love's baby talk you will have outgrown. You will no longer be his 'Goddess,' 'Angel,' 'Popsy Wopsy,' 'Queen of his heart.' There are finer names than these: wife, mother, priestess in the ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... in a sense a tragic room, but it had never seemed that to Becky. She came of a race of men who had hunted from instinct but with a sense of honor. The Judge and those of his kind hated wanton killing. Their guns would never have swept away the feathered tribes of tree and sky. It was the trappers and the pot-hunters who had done that. There had motored once to the Judge's mansion a man and his wife who had ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... assembled on the Sutlej to watch the progress of events; but the Sikhs have hitherto cautiously abstained from giving any pretext for our interference; and, as long as their disorders are confined within their own frontier, such an act would bear the aspect of wanton aggression. But though the appropriation of the Punjab, in whatever form effected, cannot be long delayed, "the pear" (to use a Napoleonic phrase) "is not yet ripe;" and as we intend to return to the subject at no distant period, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... of holydays now at this present time, with very small devotion, be solemnised and kept throughout this your Realm, upon the which many great, abominable, and execrable vices, idle and wanton sports, be used and exercised, which holydays, if it may stand with your Grace's pleasure, and specially such as fall in the harvest, might, by your Majesty, with the advice of your most honourable ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... has enchanted him with her glamour. Foul is fair! Foul fair thee, young springal, if thou go to the nets. Shadow and goblin to goblin and shadow! Flesh and blood to blood and flesh!"—and dancing round him, with wanton looks and bare arms, and gossamer robes that brushed him as they circled, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to him that evening, as he returned to Holborn after a long and trying afternoon spent in the squalid streets and slums of St Pancras and Islington. The goddess of Chance, bestowing her favours with true feminine caprice, had taken it into her wanton head, at the last moment, to accomplish for him the seemingly impossible feat of tracing the pawnbroker's marked shilling, through various dirty hands, to the pocket of the man who had pawned the pencil-case. Whether she would grant him the last favour of all, by enabling ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... Romney's wanton cruelty in his domestic character, and his reputation among his intimates and contemporaries for great kindliness of nature, generosity, and general worth, is remarkable enough. There are many men, however, who appear to the least advantage when seen by ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... royal captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... family life which had reigned there had been done. There was a kind of childish spitefulness in the sword thrusts through the few pictures which hung on the walls. The German genius for destruction and wanton vandalism was evident in broken knick-knacks and mottoes of hate and bloody vengeance scrawled upon floor ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... with the 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 ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... were done out of spite or wanton playfulness, or for the gratification of a whalish whim, the act had cost the huge leviathan no greater effort than might have been used in brushing off a fly; and after its accomplishment the old bull went bowling on after ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... to 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
... white snows,' and passed from that to a song well known at that period: 'I await thee, when the wanton zephyr,' then I began reading aloud Yermak's address to the stars from Homyakov's tragedy. I made an attempt to compose something myself in a sentimental vein, and invented the line which was to conclude each verse: 'O Zinaida, Zinaida!' but could get no further ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... get up and go out of the room; his steps sounded going upstairs, in the direction of his study. She went and drew the chair up to the hearthrug, and sat down, resting her elbows on the arms and holding her head between her hands. It was very wanton that a chance allusion of his should have brought about this scene between them. Perhaps she could have put him off with excuses, but that had not occurred to her. The scene had told her nothing new, but it had torn ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... 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 ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... evening after evening against men or women, and learn very little about them. You may decide that a lady is good-tempered, when any amount of trampling on the skirt of her new silk dress brings no cloud to her brow. But is it good temper, or only wanton carelessness, which cares nothing for waste? You can see that a man is not a gentleman who squares his back to ladies at the supper-table, and devours boned turkey and pate de fois gras, while they vainly reach over and around him for something, and that another ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... bank, than they were seized upon by a Fisherman, (who was lying in wait for them,) and completely plucked of their feathers, an operation to which they very quietly submitted, and were then suffered to depart. Upon inquiring his motive for what appeared to me a wanton act of cruelty, he told me his intention was to stuff his bed with the feathers; 'or,' added he, 'if you vill, to feather my nest.' Being myself an admirer of a soft bed, I saw no reason why I should not employ myself in the same way; but owing, perhaps, to my being a novice in the art, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... need all the spirit of her whole family," broke in Mr. Morris, warmly, "if she is to bear up beneath such wanton insults as ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... see this wanton eye, Ganymede must wait no longer; Phoebe here one night did lie, Would change her face and look much younger. But they shall not so; Hey nonny, nonny no! None but I this lip must owe; Hey nonny, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... is seen, Beside the headstones peeping, And shining like a golden star O'er some still form there sleeping; Beside the house door oft he springs, In all his wanton straying, And children shout in laughing glee To find him in ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... de La Place was commissioned by Dr. Majendie to invite me to meet her and Madame Gay Lussac at dinner. I was very unwilling to go; for I detested the man for his wanton cruelties, but I found I could not refuse on account of these ladies. There was a large party of savants, agreeable and gentlemanly; but Majendie himself had the coarsest manners; his conversation was horridly ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. His colouring, in like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pomp which the Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat the fire of gems into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactly such a beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There is nothing in his hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate the yearnings of the soul: the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimson pyres of sunset are nowhere in the world that he has painted. But that ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... there, and had touched at the Cape some time before, reported, that we were in a most wretched state, having only fourteen hands left on board the Resolution, and seven on board the Discovery. It is not easy to conceive the motive these people could have had for propagating so wanton and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... the Queen, speaking low, for the weight of the haunted place sank into my heart, 'see how she who scarce an hour ago was but a lovely wanton hath by thine act been clad in majesty greater than all the glory of the earth. Bethink thee, wilt thou dare indeed to summon back the spirit to the body whence thou hast set it free? Not easily, O Queen, may it ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... lesson which is quickly learn'd, A signal through which all can see; Thus, nothing here provokes the strong To wanton cruelty. ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... remembrance, Emily, ere day, Arose, and dress'd herself in rich array; Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair, Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair; A ribband did the braided tresses bind, The rest was loose, and wanton'd in the wind: Aurora had but newly chased the night, And purpled o'er the sky with blushing light, When to the garden-walk she took her way, To sport and trip along in cool of day, And offer maiden vows in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... land there was evidence of fierce combats and of wanton destruction of property; burning villages, fields of produce trodden in the earth, etcetera. Still further on I encountered long trains of wagons bearing supplies and ammunition to the front. As we advanced these were met by bullock-trains bearing wounded men ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter. They stay without, together with the dull, dead clay of which they form a part; while the freed brain, released from their narrowing tutelage, steals softly past the ebon gate, to wanton at its own sweet will among the mazy paths that wind through ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... well! Now, by my gods! The stripling plays the orator! Vain boy! Keep close to that same bloodless war of words, And thou shalt still be safe. Tongue-valiant warrior! Where is thy sylvan crook, with garlands hung, Of idle field-flowers? Where thy wanton harp, Thou dainty-fingered hero? Now will I meet thee, Thou insect warrior; since thou dar'st me thus, Already I behold thy mangled limbs, Dissevered each from each, ere long to feed The fierce, blood-snuffing vulture. Mark me well, Around my spear I'll twist thy shining locks And ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... not summon courage for a negative answer; she could not confess that her dream had turned out wretchedly, and that what Bob seemed to consider simply the usual thing impressed her as abnormal and wanton. ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... fires Of love: all sports, delights, and jolly games, That shepherds hold full dear, thus put I off. Now no more shall these smooth brows be begirt With youthful coronals, and lead the dance. No more the company of fresh fair maids And wanton shepherds be to me delightful: Nor the shrill pleasing sound of merry pipes Under some shady dell, when the cool wind Plays on the leaves: all be far away, Since thou art far away, by whose dear side How often have I sat, crowned with fresh flowers For summer's queen, whilst ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... fills the air— No breeze on wanton wing steals by, To break the holy quiet there, Or make the waters fret and sigh. Or the golden alders shiver, That bend to kiss the placid river, Flowing on and on for ever; But the little waves seem sleeping, O'er the pebbles slowly creeping, That last night were flashing, leaping, ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... air; but when, a few moments later, they circled near where he stood, he saw upon the young man's face an expression of earthiness and grossness that was anything but ethereal. Indeed so unmistakably wanton was the look which Sibley bent upon his companion, whose heaving bosom he clasped against his won, that the artist frowned darkly at him, and felt his hand tingling to ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... wanton destruction of forests has ruined some of the richest countries on earth. Syria and Asia Minor, Palestine and the north of Africa were once far more populous than they are at present. They were once lands "flowing with milk and honey," according to the picturesque language of the ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... not record all the stories of wanton destruction that reached us. I would rather not believe that the Federal Government could be so disgraced by its own soldiers. Dr. Day says they left nothing at all in his house, and carried everything off from Dr. Enders's. He does not believe ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... that I acted foolishly. But for mercy's sake, father, don't desert me, if I have done wrong in my folly. Wanton desires possessed me, and I couldn't control my eyes, I was induced to do what I am now ashamed of doing." Well, prudence then, rather than shame now, would have been the ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... the proud suppressed consciousness of a Goddess-like symmetry, locked up by 'fear and niceness, the handmaids of all women,' from the wonder and worship of mankind. I said so then, and I think so now: my tongue grew wanton in the praise of this passage, and I believe it bore the bell from its competitors. Wells then spoke of Lucius Apuleius and his Golden Ass, which contains the story of Cupid and Psyche, with other matter rich and rare, and went on to the ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... and make others miserable likewise. The good king will say,—You shall obey my laws, for they are for your good. You shall use my gifts, for they are for your good. And if you do not, I will punish you. You shall respect my authority. And if you do not—if you go too far, if you become wanton and cruel, and destroy your fellow-subjects unjustly off the face of the earth; then I will destroy you off the face of he earth, and burn up your city. I will destroy any government or system of society which you set up in opposition to my good and just laws. And if you merely despise ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... down in the air, When wanton blasts have tossed it? Or the ship on the sea, When ruder winds have crossed it? Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping, Or the fox's sleeping? Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride, Or the dove by his bride, When he courts her for his lechery? Oh! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of natural disposition," which shrank from "festivities and jests, in which I acknowledge my faculty to be very slight," the young singer could still enjoy the "jest and youthful jollity" of the world around him, its "quips and cranks and wanton wiles"; he could join the crew of Mirth, and look pleasantly on at the village fair, where "the jocund rebecks sound to many a youth and many a maid, dancing in the chequered shade." There was nothing ascetic in Milton's look, in his slender, vigorous frame, his face full ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... Acis wooed his Galatea in the shade, with the Sicilian sea spreading in halcyon serenity before them. There were depicted groups of fauns and dryads, fondly reclining in summer bowers, and listening to the liquid piping of the reed; or the wanton satyrs, surprising some wood-nymph during her noontide slumber. There, too, on the storied tapestry, might be seen the chaste Diana, stealing, in the mystery of moonlight, to kiss the sleeping Endymion; while Cupid and Psyche, entwined in immortal marble, breathed on each other's lips ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... wrestler To die of old age is a death rare, extraordinary, and singular To make little things appear great was his profession To smell, though well, is to stink Valour will cause a trembling in the limbs as well as fear Viscid melting kisses of youthful ardour in my wanton age We can never be despised according to our full desert When we have got it, we want something else Women who paint, pounce, ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... we therefore set off with several of our friends and, about a quarter of a mile from the tents, we found a great concourse of people formed into a ring. As soon as we were seated a dancing heiva began, which was performed by two girls and four men: this lasted half an hour and consisted of wanton gestures and motions such as have been described in the account of former voyages. When the dance ended Tinah ordered a long piece of cloth to be brought; his wife Iddeah and myself were desired to hold the two first corners and, the remaining part being supported by many others, we carried it to ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... which they had ever borne towards Ilius with Priam and his people; for they forgave not the wrong done them by Alexandrus in disdaining the goddesses who came to him when he was in his sheepyards, and preferring her who had offered him a wanton to his ruin. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... from us in the publication of this volume, to be understood as encouraging the wanton destruction of poor innocent animals. Like all kindred sports, hunting and fishing for example, the sport of Trapping may be perverted and carried to a point where it becomes simple cruelty, as is always the case when pursued for the mere excitement it brings. If the poor victims ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... problem of the village of Kheiban was solved, and if in the history of the crimes that have blackened the earth with wanton cruelty and made God to hide His face, there is any so atrocious a tale, I do not know it. But if among the annals of heroism and of mother-love we want to find a nobler record than that of this woman of Kheiban, equally am I at a loss ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... the warfare of the Teutons against the Entente Powers. A civilizing mute would deaden the resonance of bestial passion; and even private property—in especial that of Germany—would be safe from confiscation and wanton destruction, and when peace is restored the rich mercury mines of Italy will again belong to the Kaiser and his advisers. Last summer[30] a series of private meetings was held for three days running in Switzerland, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the small, chiselled cross-guard, her head forming the pommel; naked she stood in languorous pose, arms raised and hands locked behind her head. The delicate chiselling of the features was worn somewhat by handling and rough usage, but even so the evil beauty of the face was plain and manifest, the wanton languor of the long eyes, the mocking cruelty of the smiling mouth. The longer I viewed it, the more manifest became the nameless evil of the thing, so that I was greatly minded to whirl it into the horse-pond and be done with it. But bethinking me of my destitution ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... never marry, nor have children, What takes that from him? Only the bare name Of being a father, or the weak delight To see the little wanton ride a-cock-horse Upon a painted stick, or hear him ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... the Swedish Beranger (1740-1795), whose wanton music resounded through the latter half of the eighteenth century, would, no doubt, by many be called a great poet. But his Bacchanalian strain, though at times exquisite and captivating, lacks the universality of sentiment and that depth of resonance of which greatness ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... And as if the wanton impiety of their conduct called forth an immediate rebuke, even from the dead, a frown seemed to pass over Sir Piers's features, as their angry glances fell in that direction. This startling effect was occasioned by the approach of Lady Rookwood, whose shadow, falling over the brow and ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white whale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever live to spend it. Now those noble golden coins of South America ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... clergyman to Miss Norah Hood, he found himself shaking hands with a grave young person of unassertive beauty. Hers was the loveliness of the violet, which is apt to pall in this modern day—to aggravate, and to suggest wanton waste. For feminine loveliness is on the wane— marred, like many other good things, by over-education. Norah Hood was a typical country parson's daughter, who knew the right and did it, ignored the wrong and refused ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... penetrating and active minister, thoroughly acquainted with the characters of princes and the situation of affairs, had discovered an opportunity of striking a blow, which might at once restore to the Dutch the honor lost during the war, and severely revenge those injuries which he ascribed to the wanton ambition ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... expostulated with Manco in vain, on the wanton destruction of human life. His answer was, "We treat the Spaniards as they treated us. I cannot prevent my people from ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... one grave consigned, of rival fame, A reverend Doctor and a wanton dame. Well for the world both did to rest retire, For each, while living, set ...
— Notes & Queries,No. 31., Saturday, June 1, 1850 • Various
... a superhuman power upon the person against whom they are uttered. Anathema is a solemn ecclesiastical condemnation of a person or of a proposition. Curse may be just and authoritative; as, the curse of God; or, it may be wanton and powerless: "so the curse causeless shall not come," Prov. xxvi, 2. Execration expresses most of personal bitterness and hatred; imprecation refers especially to the coming of the desired evil upon the person against whom it is uttered. Malediction is a general wish of evil, a ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... curious, incidentally (but not really more curious than most human affairs), that Pete (or Mr. Corcoran) whether he was merely chaffing us, or whether he was really curious about a scarf of such wanton colour scheme, should have mentioned it just when he did, for as a matter of fact that tie had been on our mind all morning. You see to-day being warm (and please remember that what we call to-day, is now, when you are reading this, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... He is the Son of an honest, poor Soldier, by a Wife, grave, unmeaning, and innocent. Yet the Boy, (see the Power of connubial Simplicity) is so pretty, so genteel, and gay-spirited, that we have made him, and design'd him, our own, ever since he could totter, and waddle. The wanton Rogue is half Air: and every Motion he acts by has a Spring, like Pamela's when she threw down the Card-table. All this Quickness, however, is temper'd by a good-natur'd Modesty: so that the wildest of his Flights are thought ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... men of enterprise, tempered with prudence, and directed by sound judgment. Ready at all times, to resist and punish the aggression of the Indians, they were scrupulously careful not to provoke them by acts of wanton outrage, such as were then, too frequently committed along the frontier. Col. Ebenezer Zane had been among the first, to explore the country from the South Branch, through the Alleghany glades, and west of them. He was ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the one indignant and aggrieved at this wanton affront to her lover, the other gloomily resigned to what ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... juries and sought to get his victims hanged. It may be regarded as a cunning and cowardly attempt to shift part of the odium on to the Government. Certainly the prestige of the Cabinet now fell to zero. Ministers were held responsible for Braxfield's wanton vagaries, and were accused of luring English democrats into the meshes of the Scottish law. This last charge is absurd. As we have seen, the London police sought to stop Margarot, Sinclair, and Gerrald from going to Edinburgh. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... renew the struggle in 1813. He entered upon a campaign which was signalized by acts of barbarity on both sides. His declaration of "war to the death" was answered in kind. Wholesale slaughter of prisoners, indiscriminate pillage, and wanton destruction of property spread terror and desolation throughout the country. Acclaimed "Liberator of Venezuela" and made dictator by the people of Caracas, Bolivar strove in vain to overcome the half-savage llaneros, or cowboys of the ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... Effort to catch purport of his remarks completed depression under which Committee sinking. Went out to vote as if they were conducting CHAPLIN to a too early funeral. Then it was that an idea dawned on the mind of the wanton WIGGIN. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... their secret mews The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse; Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews Her head impearling; Thou liv'st with less ambitious aim, Yet hast not gone without thy fame; 30 Thou art indeed by many a claim The ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... facility and economy. Adepts as we were, in the art of "horse-pressing," there was this fact nevertheless to be said in favor of the system which we adopted: while making very free with the horse-flesh of the country into which we would raid, there was never any wanton waste of the article. We did not kill our tired stock, as did the Federal commanders on their "raids," when we got fresh ones. The men of our command were not permitted to impress horses in a friendly country. It is true ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... first hammered out for himself an iron spade?" He condemned Scott's historical writings: "Strange," he said, "that a man should think he was writing the history of a nation while he is describing the amours of a wanton young woman and a sulky booby blown up with gunpowder." After having slighted biography in this characteristically Carlylese utterance, he straightway set to work, with splendid inconsistency, to base his philosophy ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... in Pennsylvania is that contributory negligence prevents recovery. This rule, it is true, does not apply where the defendant is guilty of "negligence so wanton and gross as to be evidence of voluntary injury"; Wynn vs. Allord, 5 W. & S. 525; McKnight vs. Ratcliff, 44 Pa. 156. There is, however, nothing in the testimony to indicate that the defendant's motorman did anything wanton. Coming down a steep hill, he failed for a moment to see ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... straw, With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw, The George and Garter dangling from that bed Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies! Alas! how changed from him, That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim, Gallant and gay in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, the lord of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... to his custom of roaming the hills; they were for the most part honest men whose occupation in life was the first thought, and they were content to leave politics to Mr. Braden—that being his profession. To the most intelligent of these Mr. Crewe's garden-party was merely the wanton whim of a millionaire. It was an open secret to them that Job Braden for reasons of his own had chosen Mr. Crewe to represent them, and they were mildly amused at the efforts of Mrs. Pomfret and her assistants to secure votes which were as certain as ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... E'en Jove himself, grown old, with young desire! Oft have I gazed on gem-surpassing eyes, Outsparkling every star that gilds the skies. Necks whiter than the iv'ry arm bestow'd 60 By Jove on Pelops, or the Milky Road! Bright locks, Love's golden snares, these falling low, Those playing wanton o'er the graceful brow! Cheeks too, more winning sweet than after show'r, Adonis turn'd to Flora's fav'rite flow'r! Yield, Heroines, yield, and ye who shar'd th'embrace Of Jupiter in ancient times, give place; Give place ye turban'd Fair of Persia's coast, And ye, not less renown'd, ...
— Poemata (William Cowper, trans.) • John Milton
... is only a little bigger than a chipmunk, and usually pokes nothing more than his head out of his hole, so when I got thirteen out of fifteen shots I began to feel that I was a sharp-shooter. But don't regard this as wanton cruelty, for the gopher is worse than a rat, and in this country the government agents supply homesteaders with an annual allowance of free strychnine to poison ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... forgotten. I will not close this narrative without mentioning an act of bravery performed by a lone woman which stopped the vulgar and inhuman searching of women in our section of the city. The most atrocious and unpardonable act of the mob was the wanton disregard for womanhood. Lizzie Smith was the first woman to make a firm and stubborn stand against the proceeding in the southern section. It was near the noon hour when Lizzie, homeward bound, reached the corner of ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... of the great hall at Ferrara when hung with this brilliant series, which was completed in 1523 by the "Bacchus and Ariadne" of the National Gallery. The whole company of bacchanals is given up to wanton merrymaking. Above them broods the deep blue sky and great white clouds of a summer day. The deep greens of the foliage throw the creamy-white and burning colour of the draperies and the fair forms of the nymphs into glowing ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... she had not perhaps altogether announced herself as straining so hard at the cord. It was familiar, it was beautiful to Mrs. Stringham that she had arrears to make up, the chances that had lapsed for her through the wanton ways of forefathers fond of Paris, but not of its higher sides, and fond almost of nothing else; but the vagueness, the openness, the eagerness without point and the interest without pause—all a ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... one of the window-bars; and a captain of an Ohio regiment was shot through the head and instantly killed while reading a newspaper. He was violating no rule whatever, and when shot was from eight to ten feet inside the window through which the bullet came. This was a wholly unprovoked and wanton murder; the cowardly miscreant had fired the shot while he was off duty, and from the north sidewalk of Carey street. The guards (home guards they were) used, in fact, to gun for prisoners' heads from their posts below, pretty much ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... 1729. From 1776 to 1812 other four editions were published, with notes by Dr. A. Hunter of York, the last of which served as the text for the celebrated forestry article in the Quarterly Review for March, 1813. A later issue of Hunter's editions appeared in 1825; but in 1827 ignorant and wanton hands were with much bombastic language and buffoonry laid on this great classic, when James Mitchell, an agriculturist, published Dendrologia; or a Treatise of Forest Trees, with Evelyn's Silva, revised, corrected, and abridged by a Professional Planter and Collector of ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... previous day; high rafters, huge and jagged; and we pickaxed the way continuously. By noontime, we found ourselves alongside of a lead covered by a film of young ice. We forced the dogs and they took it on the run, the ice undulating beneath them, the same as it does when little wanton boys play at tickley benders, often with serious results, on the newly formed ice on ponds and brooks down in civilization. Our tickley benders were not done in the spirit of play, but on account of urgent ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... stream of the divine Genil; those who range the verdant Tartesian meadows; those who indulge their luxurious temper in the delicious pastures of Xerez; the wealthy inhabitants of La Mancha, crowned with golden ears of corn; the ancient offspring of the Goths, cased in iron; those who wanton in the lazy current of Pisuerga; those who feed their numerous flocks in the ample plains where the Guadiana, so celebrated for its hidden course, pursues its wandering race; those who shiver with extremity of cold on the woody Pyrenean hills or on the hoary tops of the snowy Apennines,—in ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... highly organized type of society became a social danger of large magnitude. Hence, he argued (R. 295), it was a matter of state interest that "the inferior ranks of the people" be instructed to make them socially useful and to render them "less apt to be misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to measures of government." Accordingly, he held, the State had every right, not only to take over elementary education as a state function and a public charge, but also to ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... report of three pistol-shots. As the sounds ceased Concini dropped upon his knees, and fell against the parapet of the bridge. Several weapons were then thrust into his body; and finally De Vitry, with wanton and revolting cruelty, gave him so violent a kick that he extended his body at full length upon the pavement, where it was immediately pilfered of every article of value; among other things, diamonds of great price ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... see,' said Mr Haredale, 'those walls. You see those tottering gables. You see on every side where fire and smoke have raged. You see the destruction that has been wanton here. Do you not?' ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... is an accurate copy. But I don't think you will get much out of it. Depend upon it, it is mere nonsense, a wanton scribble. I must be going now, Dyson. No, no more; that stuff of ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... My first impulse was to take her in my arms; but, as if overcome by that irresistible longing to worship which characterizes a first love, even with the grossest of beings, I fell down before her and pressed her knees to my breast; and yet, on my own supposition, it was to a shameless wanton that this homage was paid. I was none the less ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... treaty of 1783 Great Britain agreed to give us the whole West below a certain line, but when the time came for the surrender, she refused to yield the forts south of this line. With the bad faith of wanton power she kept her posts at Oswego, Niagara, Detroit, and Mackinaw, because we were weak and she was strong; and from these points her agents abetted the savages in their war upon the American frontiers. ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... one handmaid for thy stay. Ah! who had e'er imagined she could fall To such a depth of misery as this, To tend in penury thy stricken frame, A virgin ripe for wedlock, but unwed, A prey for any wanton ravisher? Seems it not cruel this reproach I cast On thee and on myself and all the race? Aye, but an open shame cannot be hid. Hide it, O hide it, Oedipus, thou canst. O, by our fathers' gods, consent I pray; Come ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... was not armed. He was a stranger in the country; that was all we ever found out about him. The thought of him got to preying upon me every night; I could not get rid of it. I could not drive it away, the taking of that unoffending life seemed such a wanton thing. And it seemed an epitome of war; that all war must be just that—the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not the observations of a junior officer, smarting under insult—they are the result of deep and calm reflection. We have arrived to that grade, that, although we have the power to inflict, we are too high to receive insult, but we have not forgotten how our young blood has boiled when wanton, reckless, and cruel torture has been heaped upon our feelings, merely because, as a junior officer, we were not in a position to retaliate, or even to reply. And another evil is, that this great error is disseminated. In observing on it, in one of our works, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... time, and gain a degree of reputation. I am an admirer of eloquence [c]; I hold it venerable, and even sacred, in all its shapes, and every mode of composition. The pathetic of tragedy, of which you, Maternus, are so great a master; the majesty of the epic, the gaiety of the lyric muse; the wanton elegy, the keen iambic, and the pointed epigram; all have their charms; and Eloquence, whatever may be the subject which she chooses to adorn, is with me the sublimest faculty, the queen of all the arts and sciences. ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... a rich and unresisting capital, the soldiers of Alaric and Genseric were stimulated by the passions of a victorious army; amidst the wanton indulgence of lust or cruelty, portable wealth was the object of their search; nor could they derive either pride or pleasure from the unprofitable reflection that they had battered to the ground the works of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... 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, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... noble qualities he possesses. He is a born fighter from the very love of it, without provocation, rhyme, or reason. One can but watch with a degree of admiration his bold sallies on the big, black crow or the marauding hawk, but when he bullies the small inoffensive birds in wanton attacks for sheer amusement, the charge is less entertaining. Occasionally, when the little victim shows pluck and faces his assailant, the kingbird will literally turn tail and show the white feather. His method of attack ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... everlasting, ever-quickening Vine, That gives the heat and passion of the world, Through its own life-blood, still renewed and shed. . . . . . . The Vine from every living limb bleeds wine; Is it the poorer for that spirit shed? The drunkard and the wanton drink thereof; Are they the richer for that gift's excess? Measure thy life by loss instead of gain; Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth; For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice; And whoso suffers most, hath ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... wanton wiles— What secret care consumes her youth, And circumscribes her smiles? A speck on ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... was good company at jeists. And wanton when he came to feists, He scorn'd the converse of great beasts, O'er a sheep's head; He laugh'd at stones about ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott |
