"Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... king of the fairies, has been commonly identified with pogge, the toad, which was believed to sit upon most of the unwholesome fungi; and the Champignon (or Paddock Stool) was said to owe its growth to "those wanton elves whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms." One of the "toad stoo's" (the Clathrus cancellatus) is said to produce cancerous sores if handled too freely. It has an abominably disgusting odour, and is therefore named the ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... not a wanton. Natacha has no heart. She has only a brain. And it doesn't take long for a brain touched by Nihilism to get so ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... churchwardens, and old monuments broken and defaced. The old stained-glass windows were destroyed. The Communion table was taken from the east end of the chancel, and seats erected round it. Crosses were defaced everywhere, and crucifixes destroyed. Puritan profanation and wanton destruction devastated our churches to a degree which has never been equalled since the hordes of heathens and barbaric Danish invaders carried fire and sword ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... unfaithfulness. Yet shall they not with him take But of wilful heart his liberal grace forsake. Which will compel me against man for to make In my displeasure, and send plagues of correction Most grievous and sharp, his wanton lusts to slake, By water and fire, by sickness and infection Of pestilent sores, molesting his complexion; By troublous war, by dearth and painful scarceness, And after this life by an extreme heaviness. ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... daughter's beauty. I thought that dragon's front of thine would cry aloof to the sons of gallantry: steel traps and spring guns seemed writ in every wrinkle of it.—But you shall quit my house this instant. The tender passions, indeed! go, thou wanton sibyl, thou amorous woman ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... which, as the owl had suspected, had been partly overheard by the bats. The hare, in other circumstances, would have rejoiced at the overthrow of King Kapchack, who was no favourite with her race, for he had, once or twice, out of wanton cruelty, pecked weakly leverets to death, just to try the temper of his bill. But she dreaded lest if he were thrust down the weasel should seize the sovereignty, the weasel, who had already done her so much injury, and was capable of ruining not only herself but her whole nation ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... for the tribal ethics, which, in practice, he daily broke and despised? Students who argue for the possible priority of the lowest, or, as I call them, mythical attributes of the Being, must advance an hypothesis of the concretion of the nobler elements around the original wanton and mischievous ghost. ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... nine-men's morris is filled up with mud; And the quaint mazes in the wanton green, For lack ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... wanton act of barbarity seems to have existed only in the depraved imagination of the Norman interpolator of the "Saxon Annals", who eagerly and impatiently dispatches the story thus, in order to introduce the subsequent ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... Pepys' Diary gives us the most vivid and trustworthy picture of the times, and the clearest view of the state of English public affairs and of English society during the reign of Charles II. We see there, as in a map, the vices of the Monarch, the intrigues of the Cabinet, the wanton follies of the Court, and the many calamities to which the nation was subjected during the memorable period of fire, plague, and general licentiousness. In the present edition all the suppressed passages have been restored, and a large amount ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... of public documents, printed by order of the two houses of congress, it is undeniable that very much of the printing itself, and the circulation of them through the mail, is a sheer abuse and wanton waste. And it is probable that a great check would be given to these abuses, if there were an account required and a charge made on the public treasury of all this circulation, at the same rate with ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene. The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, The birds sang love on ev'ry spray, Till too, too soon, the glowing west Proclaim'd the speed of ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... the store we brought hither is long since exhausted, there is still a last reserve. I bought it, with all the money that I had with me, from one of Simon's men, upon the day when we came hither from the lower town. He had gained it, doubtless, in wanton robbery for, at that time, the fighting men had plenty of food; but as it was his, I bought it, thinking that the time might come when one meal might mean life to many of us. I have never touched it, but it remains where I hid it, in my ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... to recount the destruction and havoc they made here, burning and sinking all the shipping except a Bristol galley, and destroying the fisheries and stages of the poor planters without remorse or compunction; for nothing is so deplorable as power in mean and ignorant hands—it makes men wanton and giddy, unconcerned at the misfortunes they are imposing on their fellow-creatures, and keeps them smiling at the mischiefs that bring themselves no advantage. They are like madmen that cast fire-brands, arrows, and death, and say, Are not we ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... 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
... unless this mighty wave of emigration was arrested, it would overwhelm them. They fought as savage nature will fight, with unflinching courage and unrelenting cruelty. But it was not alone this encroachment upon their lands, which roused their savage passions. The wanton aggressions of the whites oftentimes provoked the fearful retaliation of the red-man. The policy of the United States towards the Indians has generally been of a pacific and benevolent character; but, in carrying out that policy, there have been many signal and inexcusable failures. ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... Maria. A wanton imp, And full of freaks. I marvel much thereat, Since I have named him from a holy saint, Who bode among us many years, and gave His dying ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... "'Tis a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to be pelted with ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... she should have dared to unbolt the door, or to withdraw the bars. What was she, that she should be trusted to open or to close the house? And there came upon him some idea of wanton and improper conduct. Why was she there at that hour? Must it be that he should put her again from the shelter of ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... circumstances constitute an unpardonable offence against the Sovereignty of the neutral nation affected ... the Government of the United States cannot believe that the Imperial Government will longer refrain from disavowing the wanton act of its naval commander in sinking the Lusitania or offering reparation for the American lives lost, so far as reparation can be made for the needless destruction of human life by ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... disposing a man to act fairly and reasonably in his dealings with other men. That is justice. (c) It may reside in the irrational, or sensitive, appetite, and that to a twofold purpose; (a) to restrain the said appetite in its concupiscible part from a wanton and immoderate eagerness after pleasure; that is temperance: (b) to incite the said appetite in its irascible part not to shrink from danger, where there is reason for going on in spite of danger; ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... 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
... feasting and banqueting with her, crazed by her seductive charms. She has neither purity, peace, nor power. Her robes are denied by sin. She scoffs at pure Christianity and calls her old-fashioned. This strange young woman is using every device to allure souls into her wanton chamber. She is most subtle of heart. She "flattereth with her words. In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, she walketh in the streets, and lieth wait at every corner, that she might catch and kiss him ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... is the famous Knight of Provence, to the Tribune of Rome, whose grave mission we now fulfil, he is but the mercenary captain of a Free Company. Grievously in his eyes should we sully our dignity by so wanton and irrelevant a holiday conflict with a declared and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the mansion's best room, a noble chamber furnished with a richness such as no other house in Seville could have boasted. She had arrayed herself for the interview with an almost wanton cunning that should enhance her natural endowments. Her high-waisted gown, low-cut and close-fitting in the bodice, was of cloth of gold, edged with miniver at skirt and cuffs and neck. On her white bosom hung a priceless carcanet of limpid diamonds, ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... who would with wanton art Counterfeit another's part, And with noisy utterance claim Right to an ignoble name,— Inharmonious!—why must you, To a better self untrue, Gifted with the charm of song, Do ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... dealt with the occasional outbreaks in the college was very interesting. If it was a case of wanton defiance of the habitual order, there was a very slight probability of its being overlooked. A favorite prank of the stealing of the college bell was invariably punished, first by having a hand-bell rung ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... refusal to understand from an intimate woman-friend why it was that his elder niece, who had been privily married, "could no longer hide her secret" (the reticence of his friend was the sort of silly thing that you get in books and plays, but never in life) was perhaps a little wanton and caused needless embarrassment both to the young wife and to us. And one need not be very squeamish to feel that it was a pity to put into the lips of a mere child, a younger sister, the rather precocious ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... the most solemn forms were postponed or evaded. The files and records of the Department of State contain conclusive proofs of numerous lawless acts perpetrated upon the property and persons of our citizens by Mexico, and of wanton insults to our national flag. The interposition of our Government to obtain redress was again and again invoked under circumstances which no nation ought to disregard. It was hoped that these outrages would cease and that Mexico would be restrained ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... I imagine. There will be but short stay here before Harold marches south to meet the Normans. The news of the wanton destruction they are making has roused him to fury, and he will assuredly lose no time, even though he have but half the ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... the calm is o'er; The wanton water leaps in sport, And rattles down the pebbly shore; The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort, And unseen Mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among. Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: To sea, to sea! the calm ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... eternity of unhappiness. Such being the case, the more earnestly religious a man was, the more he desired to save those around him from this fate. The inquisitors, and those who supported them, cannot be charged with wanton cruelty. They killed partly to save those who defied the power of the church, and partly to prevent the spread of their doctrines. Their belief was that it was better that one man should die, even by the death of fire, than that hundreds should stray from the pale of the church, and so incur ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... knight[50] and would never have been discovered, had not the investigation into the cases of the others spread and overtaken her besides. AEmilia and Licinia had a multitude of lovers and carried on their wanton behavior with each other's help. At first they surrendered themselves to some few privately and secretly, telling each man that he was the only one admitted. Later they themselves bound every one who could suspect and inform against them to certain silence in advance by the price of intercourse ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... tyranny" continued the philanthropic orator, "it is impossible to define the term. I promise you here that I will persevere to the last in unmasking this wanton abuse of justice and humanity." His invincible fortitude in favour of the people, has rendered him a distinguished favourite among them: and though by some he is termed a visionary, an enthusiast, and a tool of party, his adherence to the rights ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... white stuff" that was a nuisance among folks, and sell it for something he could put in his pocket. In this way Romescos accumulated several hundred dollars; but avarice increased, and with it his ferocity. It belonged to the trade, a trade of wanton depravity. He became the terror of those who assumed to look upon a negro's sufferings with sympathy, scoffing at the finer feelings of mankind. Twice had his rapacity been let loose-twice had it nearly brought him to the gallows, or to the tribunal of Judge Lynch. And now, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... depredations committed by the English ships of war and privateers, on the vessels and effects of them and their fellow-subjects, were not only continued, but daily multiplied; and cruelty and excess carried to such a pitch of wanton barbarity, that the petitioners were forced to implore the assistance of their high mightinesses to protect, in the most efficacious manner, the commerce and navigation, which were the two sinews of the republic. For this necessary purpose they offered to contribute each ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the donors that comfortable feeling of lending to the Lord—but it was no use at our end of the line. What to do with it was a problem. The lowest plantation darky would regard the gift as an insult, and to burn even the filthiest rags would give rise to stories of wanton waste. So we hit upon an expedient which had been successfully employed in other fields—that of putting worthless articles in nice, clean barrels, rolling them out on the doorstep, and forgetting to bring them in at night; and every morning ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... of mouth or in writing she revealed all; with the liveliness, the noise, the emphatic gestures of a Spaniard, entering truly or falsely into a hundred impure details. She frightened, amused, wheedled her judges, drawing them after her like fools. To this corrupt, wanton, crazy girl, they entrusted the right of searching about the bodies of girls and boys, for the spot whereon Satan had set his mark. This spot discovered itself by a certain numbness, by the fact that you ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... a fair companion of his way, A goodly Lady clad in scarlet red, Purfled with gold and pearl of rich assay, And like a Persian mitre on her head She wore, with crowns and riches garnished, The which her lavish lovers to her gave; Her wanton palfrey all was overspread With tinsell trappings, woven like a wave, Whose bridle rang with ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... is fit to be free and to govern itself, and generously strives to be so, there go all its sympathies. It detests the tyrant, the lawless oppressor, the military usurper, and him who abuses a lawful power. It frowns upon cruelty, and a wanton disregard of the rights of humanity. It abhors the selfish employer, and exerts its influence to lighten the burdens which want and dependence impose upon the workman, and to foster that humanity and kindness which man owes to even the ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... as death approacheth, speaks a different language —If it testifies to a departing soul—"You have neglected, the great salvation—lived in pleasure and been wanton, minding only earthly things," it fills the soul with anguish unutterable, causing it to ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... anxious for the unity and harmony of the two races, and the satisfactory operation of political institutions, were sincerely desirous of hiding it forever. This measure was pecuniary compensation from the state for certain losses incurred by people in French Canada in consequence of the wanton destruction of property during the revolt. The obligation of the state to give such compensation had been fully recognized ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... the instinctive love of their offspring observable in almost all birds! After the eggs are laid the parent bird has no further trouble with them; no period of incubation to bare the breast of the brooding bird; no anxiety about her young ones, as some idle, wanton lad hunts amongst the trees and bushes, destroys both nest and eggs, or tortures the helpless fledglings! "But, papa," said Willy, "how does it happen that the young birds hatched in the same nest with the young cuckoo always get turned out of it." The cuckoo, being much the larger and heavier ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... you are out of your mind," said the count, with imperturbable equanimity. "You grant that I may propose a suitor to you, and you call it a wanton insult when that suitor respectfully asks the honour of your hand, merely because he is not young enough to suit your romantic tastes, which have been fostered by this wretched southern air. It is unfortunate that my health requires me to reside in Italy. Had you enjoyed an orderly Prussian education, ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... on earth could he have put perfect confidence. He regarded them as born to perpetual pupilage. Not that their inclinations were necessarily wanton; they were simply incapable of attaining maturity, remained throughout their life imperfect beings, at the mercy of craft, ever liable to be misled by childish misconceptions. Of course he was right; he himself represented the guardian male, ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... in the myrtle's fragrant shade repines: Starves, in the midst of nature's bounty curs'd, And in the loaden vineyard dies for thirst. O Liberty, thou goddess heavenly bright, 120 Profuse of bliss, and pregnant with delight! Eternal pleasures in thy presence reign, And smiling plenty leads thy wanton train; Eased of her load, subjection grows more light, And poverty looks cheerful in thy sight; Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay, Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day. Thee, goddess, thee, Britannia's isle adores; How has she oft exhausted ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... to whom harsh fate has dealt A captive's birthright—thou wilt never scamper With winged feet across the windy veldt, Where are no crowds to stare nor bars to hamper; Thou wilt not ring upon the rhino's pelt In wanton sport. But there—why put a damper On thy young spirits by recounting what Africa is but Regent's Park ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... wanton: Till they killed the colibris. Then outspake the great Good Spirit, Who can see through all ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... management in question ever admitted that their unwonted activity was due to my successful stratagem, the fact remains that the summary discharge of several attendants accused and proved guilty of brutality immediately followed and for a while put a stop to wanton assaults against which for a period of four months I had protested in vain. Patients who still lived in the violent ward told me that comparative ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... the conventional forms of decency without really violating its laws. Hacquet moreover only half understood those songs of the Slovenzi. We will at least not condemn them without having seen them. Among the Russian songs, there are some of a certain wanton and equivocal character, displaying with perfect naivete a scarcely half-veiled sensuality. The boldness, with which these songs are sung in chorus by young peasant women, has often excited the astonishment of foreigners. The number ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... doings. Not so. It has been said, that those the gods would destroy they first make mad. And I have been indeed mad. I have crossed thy will, and scoffed at thy authority, and done divers evil and wanton things. Wherefore, last night a vision was vouchsafed me, and I have seen the wickedness of my ways. And thou stoodst forth like a shining star, with brows aflame, and I knew in mine own heart thy greatness. I saw all things clearly. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... a wanton song: Their words offend my ears: I should not dare defile my tongue With language such ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... been either averted, or materially modified, or at least greatly postponed, by wise statesmanship and timely compromise. Take, for example, the American Revolution, which destroyed the political unity of the English race. You will often hear this event treated as if it were simply due to the wanton tyranny of an English Government, which desired to reduce its colonies to servitude by taxing them without their consent. But if you will look closely into the history of that time—and there is no history which is more instructive—you will find that this is a ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... "Not wanton killing, but a judicious slaying. The point is, they know there is an Invisible Man—as well as we know there is an Invisible Man. And that Invisible Man, Kemp, must now establish a Reign of Terror. Yes; no doubt it's startling. But I mean it. A Reign of Terror. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... particular circle had no hand in these promiscuous destructions of life. Their own attempts were invariably well organised and directed towards some definite end. They did not destroy life for mere wanton cruelty, and their victims were marked out and hunted down with ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... chaffing, strolling in and out of the wide-open saloons. Their cheeks were rouged, their eye-lashes painted, their eyes bright with wine. They gazed at the men like sleek animals, with looks that were wanton and alluring. A libertine spirit was in the air, a madcap freedom, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... 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 chatter Like ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... drinks and gambles; his son will drink less, gamble more—though it was not a young man who recently lost L40,000 in a night's sitting at a club in Melbourne—and lead a wanton life; but he will probably have the sense to educate his children thoroughly, instead of taking them away from school at seventeen, as was done with himself; and the grandson will obtain some cultivated tastes which will make a fight for it with those he has inherited. ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... to many besides, that notwithstanding the extensive researches of Wodrow and others, there have died away in the silent lapse of time, or are still hovering over our cleuchs and glens, in the aspect of a dim and misty tradition, many instances of extreme cruelty and wanton oppression, exercised (during the reign of Charles II.) over the poor Covenanters, or rather Nonconformists, of the south and west counties of Scotland. In particular, although the whole district suffered, it was in ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... can use it at pleasure, and that it always obeys your order faithfully. Imagine body as separated from you. When it cries out, stop it instantly, as a mother does her baby. When it disobeys you, correct it by discipline, as a master does his pupil. When it is wanton, tame it down, as a horse-breaker does his wild horse. When it is sick, prescribe to it, as a doctor does to his patient. Imagine that you are not a bit injured, even if it streams blood; that you are entirely safe, even if it is drowned in ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... which at first had been dictated by real passion, carried the abuse still further, and introduced phrases composed apparently in the spirit of the original figurative language of passion, yet altogether of their own invention, and characterised by various degrees of wanton deviation ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... beat, so acute was the suffering, with the enemy close on our heels; certainly, if at such a season as that I was guilty of outrage, I plead guilty to being a more outrageous brute than the ass, which is too wanton, they say, to feel fatigue. Still, I wish you would tell us," said he, "what led to my striking you. Did I ask you for something and, on your refusing it to me, did I proceed to beat you? Was it a debt, for which I demanded payment? or a quarrel about some boy or other? Was I ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... One wanton villain—it was the French gutter-snipe, Virot—paused a moment to ride up to a window of the hall and discharge his revolver through the glass. Fortunately his aim was as evil as his intent. Beyond shattering a priceless vase, ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... Takes love, that should be nothing but the beat Of blood for its own beauty, by the throat, Saying, you are my servant and shall do My purposes, or utter bitterness Shall be your wage, and nothing come to you But stammering tongues that never can confess. Undaunted then in answer here I cry, 'You wanton, that control the hand of him Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky Where holy, holy, sing the cherubim, I will not pay one penny to your name Though all my ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... where the armies of the world are seen gathered in battle array against the Lord Christ and His right to reign; in the face of this divine warning the statesmen of the world are assembled in counsel at Paris, the world's capital of pleasure, in a palace once dedicated to lust and wanton self-gratification, whose panelled ceiling and mirrored walls are filled with and reflect the scenes and glorification of war, that by the stroke of a pen, by a series of resolutions, they may constitute a league of nations bulking so big that every threatened ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... created a great stir, and although the patriotic party approved it, there were a great many Tories in the country who condemned it as a piece of outrageous violence and wanton waste. This latter opinion was so freely expressed, that the English owners of the cargo were encouraged to take legal steps against the men who destroyed the tea. It was easy enough to do this; for the young fellows who had made the bonfire were very proud of what they had done, and, instead ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... morality with the organization of life, serves also to demonstrate life in its unity and larger auspices. Morality harmonizes life and eliminates its wanton {28} self-destruction; but life is not therefore left without an object of conquest. For there is one campaign in which all interests are engaged, and which requires their undivided and aggressive effort. This is the first and last campaign, the war of life upon ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... ROMP. A forward wanton girl, a tomrig. Grey, in his notes to Shakespeare, derives it from arompo, an animal found in South Guinea, that is a man ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... in 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 ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... families, under the venerable sanction of parental authority; the power which we are taught to honour from the first moments of reason; which is guarded from insult and violation by all that can impress awe upon the mind of man; and which therefore may wanton in cruelty without control, and trample the bounds of right with innumerable transgressions, before duty and piety will dare to seek redress, or think themselves at liberty to recur to any other means of deliverance than supplications by which insolence is elated, and tears by which ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... fortress. It stands on the margin of a lovely lake, and considering its delightful situation and its comparative comfort, it is not strange that it was a favorite residence of the Scottish kings. It owes its dismantled condition to the wanton spite of the English dragoons, who, when they retreated from Linlithgow in face of the Highland army in 1746, left ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... their inheritance in the most shameful of all ways, by the kitchen; at another, excessive care for the body, and a devotion to personal beauty which implies ugliness of mind; at another time, injudiciously granted liberty will show itself in wanton recklessness and defiance of authority; sometimes there will be a reign of cruelty both in public and private, and the madness of the civil wars will come upon us, which destroy all that is holy and inviolable. Sometimes ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to God. He believes that God is neither good nor bad, but simply capricious. What's the use of being God, if you can't do what you like? He treats earth's creatures as a wanton boy treats his toys; they belong to me; why shouldn't I break them if I choose? No one ought to complain of misfortunes: you can not expect God is going to reward the virtuous and punish the guilty. He has no standards whatever. ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... necessary to explain the conditions on which rewards were offered for capture, which had been abused, by the violent detention of inoffensive natives: those who, in attempting to arrest them, were guilty of wanton mischief, were threatened with the penalties of the law. These orders were followed by outrages, which threw doubt on the propriety of distinctions: the ally of to-day, was the robber of yesterday, and the assassin of the morrow. The natives of the south-west districts of the ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... of waste must be distinguished from the wanton waste committed by army-stragglers, which is wrong, and can be punished by the death-penalty if ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... command. He was imperious as a young Caesar, terrible in his vengeance; and poor Jimmie, watching him, was torn between two contradictory emotions. He hated him—hated him with a deadly and abiding hatred. But also he admired him, marvelled at him, cringed before him. Lacey was a wanton, a cursing tyrant, a brutal snob; but also he was the master, the conqueror, the proud, free, rich young aristocrat, for whom all the rest of humanity existed. And Jimmie Higgins was a poor little worm of a proletarian, with nothing but his labour-power to sell, trying by sheer ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... unfairly hastened, as, in the natural course of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of her reputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other children, at the time—all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin—jealousy perhaps, or wanton ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... to think that Bob Bangs was influenced by sheer spite and cruelty of heart, or by a wanton delight in witnessing and contributing to the suffering of others; yet so one was often forced to believe. It is bad enough when one fellow stands by and, without lifting a finger to help, lets another suffer; but when, instead of that, he actually makes himself the instrument of torture, he is nothing ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... fearless, ruthless, wanton band, Deep in our hearts we guard from scathe Of last year's log a smouldering brand, To light at Yule the ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... said, died insane, and the time has come when the daughter also is watched with all care lest she harm herself—or her attendants. So I hear—the maid I do not know, but the scarf I can trace. Briefly—the evident place for such a wanton spitfire is the convent. You can easily see the turmoil a woman like that can make as each ship brings adventurers—and she seeks a ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... in the curls of the snaky plants. He hears a cry. Looking up and forward, he sees, at the bleak point of the reef, a tall, pale thing—shaped like man, but made of spray—transparent, tremulous, awful. It stands not alone. They are all human figures that wanton in the rocks—a crowd of foam-women—a band ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... captain was introduced by a tall and refined old clergyman to Miss Norah Hood, he found himself shaking hands with a grave young person of unassertive beauty. Hers was the loveliness of the violet, which is apt to pall in this modern day—to aggravate, and to suggest wanton waste. For feminine loveliness is on the wane— marred, like many other good things, by over-education. Norah Hood was a typical country parson's daughter, who knew the right and did it, ignored the wrong and refused to ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... classes, no hostility to existing wealth, no wanton or unjust violation of the rights of property, but a constant disposition to ameliorate the condition of the classes least ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... altar tomb (6) which now contains the remains of Bishop Beauchamp, who died in 1481. When this was removed from the aisle at the north end of the great transept it was empty, and showed no trace of its original dedication. During the wanton demolition of the Beauchamp chantry, where, "in marble tumbes," with his father and mother on either hand, the remains of Bishop Beauchamp had been unmolested for over three hundred years, his own tomb was "mislaid" ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... there were tiny white butterflies, frail as dream-stuff. There were anemones; and John Bulmer sighed at their insolent perfection. Theirs was a frank allure; in the solemn forest they alone of growing things were wanton, for they coquetted with the wind, and their pink was ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... procreation. But a doubt is hardly permissible; a philosopher will soundly opine that hunger is for these unhappy ones a more pressing necessity than love. In the greenness of my youth I believed that the human animal is before all things inclined to sexual intercourse. But that was a wanton error, as it is quite clear that human beings are more interested in conserving their own life than in giving life to others. Hunger is the axis of humanity; but after all, as it seems to be useless to discuss the matter any further, I'll say, with your permission, that the life of mortals ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... that the wound was accidental, and so have escaped the conviction of injury wrought with intention. All would have been immediately well with him and Clarice, had it not been for Clarice! There are persons, their name is Legion, who are as wanton in offence as Bondo Emmins,—whose souls are black with murderous records of hopes they have destroyed; yet they will condole with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... great-grandmother-in-law, and her great-grandfather accordingly, Mrs. Mehitable and Parson Job Hyde, peering out, one from a bushy ornament of pink laurel-blossoms, and the other from an airy and delicate garland of the wanton sweet-pea, each stony pair of eyes seeming to glare with Medusan intent at this profaning of their state and dignity. "Isn't it charming, dear?" said the innocent little beauty, with a satisfaction half doubtful, as her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in the reports from Cuba. And yet every thinking man among us, young and old, turned cold with apprehension when we were threatened with a European interference which would have dishonoured us. That Spain is behaving with wanton brutality would not be to the point, even if the reports were not exaggerated, which they are,—for the matter of that, the Cubans are equally brutal when they find the opportunity. The point is that it is none of our business. The Cubans have ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... with carved and tapestried images. Upon this pyramidal or flame-shaped structure lay the corpse, hidden now under a mountain of flowers and incense brought by the women, who from the first had had their fondness for the wanton graces of the deceased. The dead body was surmounted by a waxen effigy of great size, arrayed in the triumphal ornaments. [32] At last the Centurions to whom that office belonged, drew near, torch in hand, to ignite the pile at its four ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... moment looked up and saw William looking at my father in a strange manner. To those who were not on the alert it might have apeared that he was trying not to smile, my father having a way of indulging in "quips and cranks and wanton wiles" at the table which mother does not like, as our Butlers are apt to listen to him and not fill ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Lucilius, or Catullus, or Flaccus, by any order prohibited. And for matters of state, the story of Titus Livius, though it extolled that part which Pompey held, was not therefore suppressed by Octavius Caesar of the other faction. But that Naso was by him banished in his old age, for the wanton poems of his youth, was but a mere covert of state over some secret cause: and besides, the books were neither banished nor called in. From hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman empire, that we ...
— Areopagitica - A Speech For The Liberty Of Unlicensed Printing To The - Parliament Of England • John Milton
... calculated to confound and bewilder. I looked around me, to assure myself that the scene was real. I moved, that I might banish the doubt that I was awake. Such enormous imputations from the mouth of Pleyel! To be stigmatized with the names of wanton and profligate! To be charged with the sacrifice of honor! with midnight meetings with a wretch known to be a murderer and thief! with an intention to fly in ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... away in the East—yes it was the East's business to see what went on in the West—were myriads of wage-earners forced to pay exorbitantly for coal and wood and lumber and house rent because of this wanton waste; this seizing fraudulently by the few of the property belonging to the many. If they had thrown down the challenge, assuredly he was taking it up! What would the people do about it, he wondered, when they came to know? Would any power on earth waken the people up to do something, ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... double dungeon wall and wave Have made—and like a living grave. Below the surface of the lake[12] The dark vault lies wherein we lay: We heard it ripple night and day; Sounding o'er our heads it knocked; And I have felt the winter's spray Wash through the bars when winds were high 120 And wanton in the happy sky; And then the very rock hath rocked, And I have felt it shake, unshocked,[13] Because I could have smiled to see The death that would have set ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... comprehend all this, and that you have sought to act for the best," was Wells's comment; "but I fail to realize how you hoped to appease those same Indians by the wanton destruction last night of the liquor thrown into the river. It was done in direct opposition to the orders you have just read, and is bound to increase the hatred of the savages. You may be sure they are not ignorant of the contents of your despatch, and must resent the destruction of ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... remembering that struggle with tender tears; I shall forgive its so-called "pride of race," the passion of its hot blood, and even its dear, old, laughable strutting and posing; but one thing I shall never forgive, neither in this world nor the world to come: its wanton and continued and persistent insulting of the black womanhood which it sought and seeks to prostitute to its lust. I cannot forget that it is such Southern gentlemen into whose hands smug Northern hypocrites of ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Signs of looting one expected—the looting of food-stuffs and livestock and necessaries; that, after all, is but a kind of self-defence, and I suppose it is allowable to live upon an enemy when one invades his land. But the destruction that had here taken place was wanton and savage. One seemed to travel in the footsteps of some fiend who had left his mark upon every home, destroying the things that were probably most prized by the owners, and destroying with a devilish ingenuity that had saved him all unnecessary ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... in downright nastiness save Ravenscroft and Wycherley.... With Dryden she vied in indecency and was not overcome.... She was a mere harlot, who danced through uncleanness and dared them [the male dramatists] to follow.' Again, we have that she was 'a wanton hussy'; her 'trolloping muse' shamefacedly 'wallowed in the mire'; but finally the historian is bound to ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... was governed by the descendants of Sefi, a race of princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their table, and their bed, with the blood of their favorites, there is a saying recorded of a young nobleman, that he never departed from the sultan's presence, without satisfying himself whether ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... the house should address the king, to take back the queen, and stop the prosecution of his divorce. This motion made the king send for Audley, the speaker, and explain to him the scruples with which his conscience had long been burdened; scruples, he said, which had proceeded from no wanton appetite, which had arisen after the fervors of youth were past, and which were confirmed by the concurring sentiments of all the learned societies in Europe. Except in Spain and Portugal, he added, it was never heard of, that any man had espoused two ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... in giving you the following latest information from the commander-in-chief's camp, dated 16th instant; it indeed has been a sad business, and it is impossible to predict when our mishaps, and such fearful butchery and wanton sacrifice of life will end or stop, under such a commander-in-chief. Unless the governor-general recalls Lord Gough to the provinces, the chances ate he will not only lose the splendid army under his command, which he has already done ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... on tuberculosis of the lungs. The principal object of his amours is the wife of a friend. A violent hemorrhage warns him of approaching death. Stricken with fear he rushes to the nearest statue of the Madonna and registers a vow; he will marry a wanton, effect her redemption, thereby hoping to save his own miserable life. The heroine of the opera appears and she meets his requirements. He marries her and for a while she seems blest. But the siren, the Lola in the case, winds her toils about him as the disease stretches him ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... airs Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning; The melting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tie The hidden ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various
... be done (remembering all that she had to dread from the wanton exercise of Jack's tongue) was to soothe his ruffled vanity without further delay. There would be no difficulty in discovering him, if he had not gone out. Wherever his Mistress might be at the moment, there he ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... her, interdicting her from having ever afterwards any commerce with man. He loved with a most passionate and constant affection Caesonia, who was neither handsome nor young; and was besides the mother of three daughters by another man; but a wanton of unbounded lasciviousness. Her he would frequently exhibit to the soldiers, dressed in a military cloak, with shield and helmet, and riding by his side. To his friends he even showed her naked. After she had a child, he honoured her with the title of wife; in one and the same day, declaring ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... insensibility to giving physical pain. If they are cruel to animals, for instance, it always reminds me of children pulling off flies' legs, in a sort of pitiless, untaught, experimental way. Yet I should not fear any wanton outrage from them. After all their wrongs, they are not really revengeful; and I would far rather enter a captured city with them than with white troops, for they would be more subordinate. But for mere physical suffering they would have no fine sympathies. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... hysteria, and especially in that peculiar form of disease known as nymphomania, under the excitement of which a young woman, naturally chaste and modest, may be impelled to the commission of the most wanton acts. The pernicious influence of fashionable dress in occasioning this ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... routine forced him out—into what?—into the moil and toil of fighting for offices, and there he has cut a poor figure indeed. You may say that he has had to spend his energy trying to find a chance to use his power. What a wanton waste of talent is that for a civilized nation! Wiley is another case of the creative mind harassed by the routineers. Judge Lindsey is another—a fine, constructive children's judge compelled to be a politician. And of our misuse of the Rockefellers and ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... and looked as keenly at her As careful robins eye the delver's toil; And that within her, which a wanton fool, Or hasty judger would have called her guilt, Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall. And Geraint looked ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... sundry things I see, As if I woulde I cannot write ech priuate point to thee. The colde is rare, the people rude, the prince so full of pride, The Realme so stored with Monks and nunnes, and priests on euery side: The maners are so Turkie like, the men so full of guile, The women wanton, Temples stuft with idols that defile The Seats that sacred ought to be, the customes are so quaint, As if I would describe the whole, I feare my pen would faint. In summe, I say I neuer saw a prince that so did raigne, Nor people so beset with Saints, yet all but ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... Prince, then look across at Broad Street, at Count Schwarzenberg's palace. There all is glory and splendor, there are to be seen lackeys in golden liveries, costly equipages, handsomely furnished halls. They practice wanton luxury, they live amid pomp and pleasure, arrange magnificent hunts and splendid entertainments, while the people cry out for hunger. They make merry in Count Schwarzenberg's palace, and while the burgher, whose last cent he has seized for the payment ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... with the Bois de Bouvigny to the west of it—where I stood among Canadian batteries just six weeks before the battle of Arras in 1917. The lamentable ruin of once beautiful Arras, the desolation of Douai, and the villages between it and Valenciennes, the wanton destruction of what was once the heart of Cambrai, and that grim scene of the broken bridge on the Cambrai—Bapaume road, over the Canal du Nord, where we got out on a sombre afternoon, to look and look again at a landscape that will be famous through the world for generations: they rise again, ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... profound peace, and, as they thought, full security, were massacred by their nearest neighbours, with whom they had long maintained a continued intercourse of kindness and good offices. Nay, even death was the slightest punishment inflicted by these monsters in human form; all the tortures which wanton cruelty could invent, all the lingering pains of body, the anguish of mind, the agonies of despair, could not satiate revenge excited without injury, and cruelly derived from no just cause whatever. Depraved nature, even perverted religion, though encouraged by the utmost license, cannot ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... foolish ones!" he continued, advancing to the front of the window, and stretching forth his arms towards the assemblage. "Repent! and amend your ways ere it be too late! Hew down the offensive idol, which you term your May-pole, and cast it into the flames! Cease your wanton sports, your noisy pipings, your profane dances, your filthy tipplings. Hear what the prophet Isaiah saith:—'Wo to them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink.' And again:—'Wo to the drunkards of ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... beneath mountains lay the first-born sons of mother Earth, helpless in their destroying fury against the new, glorious race of gods, and their kindred, glad-hearted men. Ocean's dusky, green abyss was the lap of a goddess. In the crystal grottoes revelled a wanton folk. Rivers, trees, flowers, and beasts had human wits. Sweeter tasted the wine, poured out by youth impersonated; a god was in the grape-clusters; a loving, motherly goddess upgrew in the full golden sheaves; love's sacred carousal was a sweet worship of ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... and brow of scorn, The worshiper of reason and of self, The atheist, wanton, and the giddy maid, The faith-betrayer and the love-betrayed; Self-righteous pharisees, who would adorn Or hide with pious garb their love ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... know more particularly how Mary looked, ten to one you will see a face like hers in the crowded street to-morrow, if you are there on the watch: she will not be among those daughters of Zion who are haughty, and walk with stretched-out necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go: let all those pass, and fix your eyes on some small plump brownish person of firm but quiet carriage, who looks about her, but does not suppose that anybody is looking at her. If she has a broad face and square brow, well-marked eyebrows ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... on old May-day." However, the evidence I have adduced of a custom of burnt sacrifice among English rustics tends to confirm the old woman's statement, that the burning of the live sheep which she witnessed was not an act of wanton cruelty but a sacrifice per formed ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer |
