"Inconstancy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a goddess who reigns paramount, not only in Great Britain, but also in all his Majesty's plantations; and her votaries very soon selected me as the target of their archery. My pretty Carlotta became jealous; she taxed me with inconstancy. I denied the charge; and as a proof of my innocence, she obtained from me a promise that I should go no more to the house of her rival; but this promise I took very good care to evade, and to break. For a whole fortnight, my domestic ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... chances he did. Most confirmed gamblers, however, remain gamblers. The lure of excitement is more potent to such men than a wife whose charm has gone, through familiarity, through time itself, through the inconstancy of passion and love. The gambler usually knows no duty; he is kind and generous but only to please himself. He is easily bored and his sympathies rarely stand the disagreeable long; he ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... express what he has himself felt or suffered; and yet he mixes so much probability in the circumstances, that they are always eloquently proper. He does everything, as it were, the reverse of other poets; in the air and sea, which have been in all times the emblems of change and the similitudes of inconstancy, he has discovered the very principles of permanency. The ocean in his view, not by its vastness, its unfathomable depths, and its limitless extent, becomes an image of deity, by its ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... trifling ceremonies into intolerable burdens; always dresses becoming to her rank and age; is modest without prudery, religious without an alloy of superstition; can hear the one sex praised without envy, and converse with the other without permitting the torch of inconstancy to kindle the unhallowed fire in her breast; considers her husband as the most accomplished of mortals, and thinks all the sons of Adam besides unworthy of a transient glance from the corner of ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... mind turned all these strange novelties into omens of success. The changeless wind was the favoring breath of the Omnipotent; the day lengthened as they followed the sun's course; an ingenious fiction explained the inconstancy of the needle; the vast fields of sea-weed bespoke a neighboring shore; and the flight of unknown birds[45] was hailed with happy promise. But as time passed on, and brought no fulfillment of their hopes, the spirits of the timid began to fail; the flattering ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... Otterbourne Park, and a large bunch on the Romsey Road. An old woman described having tried the augury, having laid the plants in pairs on Midsummer Eve, naming them after pairs of sweethearts. Those that twisted away from each other showed inconstancy! ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... I am unkind That from the nursery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True! a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field, And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield. Yet this inconstancy is such As you too shall adore, I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... agreeable to a man Believing that it is for virtue's sake alone such men love them Determined to cultivate ability rather than scrupulousness Disenchantment which follows possession Have not that pleasure, it is useless to incur the penalties Inconstancy of heart is the special attribute of man Knew her danger, and, unlike most of them, she did not love it Put herself on good terms with God, in case He should exist Two persons who desired neither to ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger
... passively humoured every caprice of pleasure, and which had won upon him so greatly, that finding, as he said, all that variety in me alone, which he had sought for in a number of women, I had made him lose his taste for inconstancy, and new faces. But what was yet at least agreeable, as well as more nattering, the love I had inspired him with, bred a deference to me, that was of great service to his health: for having by degrees, and with much pathetic ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... ought not to quarrel with Heaven. If the feeble charms which my countenance displays have exposed me to the misfortune of my lover abandoning me, Heaven could not better soften such a blow than by making use of you to captivate that heart. I ought not to blush for an inconstancy which indicates the difference between your attractions and mine. If this change makes me sigh, it is from foreseeing that it will be fatal to your love; amidst the sorrow caused by friendship, I am angry for your sake that my few attractions have failed to retain a heart whose ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... Gibbon published in his father's lifetime. His account of the latter's death (November 10, 1770) is feelingly written, and shows the affectionate side of his own nature to advantage. He acknowledges his father's failings, his weakness and inconstancy, but insists that they were compensated by the virtues of the head and heart, and the warmest sentiments of honour and humanity. "His graceful person, polite address, gentle manners, and unaffected cheerfulness ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... instant, by word or look, encouraged my madness. She repulsed my advances, refused every attention, and when I rashly uttered words, which, I admit, were treasonable to Muriel, she almost overwhelmed me with her fiery contempt and indignation,—threatening to acquaint Muriel with my inconstancy, and appealing to my honor as a gentleman to keep inviolate my betrothal vows. Dr. Grey, if my heart temporarily wandered from its allegiance to your ward, it was not Salome's fault, for in every respect her conduct towards me was that of a noble, unselfish woman, who scorned to gratify her ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... was distinguished by a levity and inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the Roman Censor. In the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those princes who had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian faith. In the last three years and a half, listening to the insinuations of a minister addicted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... sir, to my speaking to her, I mean?' said Mr. Coxe, a little anxious at the expression on Mr. Gibson's face. 'I do assure you I have not a chance with Miss Gibson,' he continued, not knowing what to say, and fancying that his inconstancy was ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... so little regarded, if not more despised, amongst us than our own. Examples hereof I could set down many and in many things; but, sith my purpose is to deal at this time with gardens and orchards, it shall suffice that I touch them only, and show our inconstancy in the same, so far as shall seem and be convenient for my turn. I comprehend therefore under the word "garden" all such grounds as are wrought with the spade by man's hand, ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... to be wrought, or, putting it the other way, how Marcian was to be helped, she saw as yet only in glimpses of ruthless purpose. Of Bessas she did not think as of a man easy to subdue or to cajole; his soldierly rudeness, the common gossip of his inconstancy in love, and his well-known avarice, were not things likely to touch her imagination, nor had she ever desired to number him in the circle of her admirers. That it might be in her power to do what Marcian besought, she was very willing ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... suspicion, however, if there had ever been any, quickly vanished. The symptoms entirely changed twelve hours later, and the next day the sick man felt pains quite the opposite of those which had previously distressed him. This very inconstancy of the distemper served to puzzle the doctor's conclusions. Sauvresy, in these latter days, had scarcely suffered at all, he said, and had slept well at night; but he had, at times, strange and often distressing sensations. He was evidently failing hourly; he was dying—everyone perceived it. And ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... retreat. Howbeit I pretend not hereby to banish Shipwrecks from Romanzes, I approve of them in the works of others, and make use of them in mine; I know likewise, that the Sea is the Scene most proper to make great changes in, and that some have named it the Theatre of inconstancy; but as all excess is vicious, I have made use of it but moderately, for to conserve true resembling: Now the same design is the cause also, that my Heros is not oppressed with such a prodigious quantity of accidents, as arrive unto some others, ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... solemn confession of sinnes, and engagement unto duties, sealed with the renewing of the Covenant and the Oath of God; Which some men have so far already forgotten, as to return with the dogge to the vomit, and with the sow to the puddle: And many signes of inconstancy and levity do appear among all sorts and ranks of persons, who seem to want nothing but a sutable tentation to draw them away from their stedfastnesse; Our Army is not yet sufficiently purged, but there be still in it Malignant ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... 605-4 they were not so impressed with the divinity of Jeremiah's word as they had been in 608. Then they did not speak of telling the king; now they say that they must tell(332) him. Jehoiakim's malignant influence has grown, and Jeremiah discovers the inconstancy of the princes, even of some friendly ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream of beginning its reformation ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... one of them. It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones; and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws, which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments. They will consider every institution calculated to restrain the excess of law-making, and to keep things in the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... last stanza shows very pleasingly the faithfulness of father and children, in contrast to the inconstancy ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... Lord. From the beginning, the desires of the flesh have been the bane of a good life. When shall Thy grace, O Lord, inspire me with some degree of that firmness and faithful adherence to Thee. Suffer not my heart to be overcome by that inconstancy which is so natural to it, nor allow my life to be a perpetual succession of evil practices and infidelities. Grant that my heart may be all Thine, at all times and forever. And that by mortification I may merit ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... their intercourse a certainty of power and promise of greater power. Silly people fill the world with lamentation over human inconstancy; but if we follow love, we cannot cling to the beloved. We must love onward, and only when our friends go before us can we be true both to friendship and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... thou bearest to the dogly character, and can attribute to nothing else the complacency with which thou hast listened to me since I released thy cloak. If ever the Athenians, in their inconstancy, should issue a decree to deprive me of the appellation they have conferred on me, rise up, I pray thee, in my defence, and protest that I have not merited so severe a mulct. Something I do deserve at thy hands; having supplied thee, first with a store of patience, when thou wert going without any ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Irishman, made up of contradictions and improbabilities. He is in love with Zaira, a brilliant Italian, and also with her unknown daughter, called Eva Wentworth, a model of purity. Both women are blighted by his inconstancy. Eva dies, but Zaira lives to see De Courcy perish of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... divorce being so frequent that he once saw a woman surrounded by seven former husbands, and there being hardly any difference between legitimacy and illegitimacy. Another old writer, Rev. S. Gobat, describes the Abyssinians as light-minded, having nothing constant but inconstancy itself. A more recent writer, J. Hotten (133-35), explains, in the following sentence, a fact which has often misled ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... "the girls we have known." Be sure you study the subject thoroughly before accusing that inscrutable, proud and procrastinating clerk of yours of inconstancy. ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... it should be mentioned, as a proof of his judicious benevolence, that in conjunction with Sir John Hawkins, he procured the establishment of the Chest at Chatham for the relief of aged or sick seamen, out of their own voluntary contributions. The faults ascribed to him are ambition, inconstancy in friendship, and too much desire ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... inclines him to consider every man as a rival in every pretension; with him whose airy negligence puts his friend's affairs or secrets in continual hazard, and who thinks his forgetfulness of others excused by his inattention to himself; and with him whose inconstancy ranges without any settled rule of choice through varieties of friendship, and who adopts and dismisses favourites by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... had ever used art in his management of Vivian's mind, he might have been suspected of using it in favour of Miss Sidney at this instant; for this prophecy of Vivian's inconstancy was the most likely means to prevent its accomplishment. Frequently, in the course of their tour, when Vivian was in any situation where his constancy was tempted, he recollected Russell's prediction, and was proud to remind him how much he had been mistaken. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... do that," I replied. "She will go, never fear. Leave her to herself, her mood will have changed by morning. There is only one thing to be relied upon in women, and that is their inconstancy, not alone to men ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... the oppression of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—the age of the re-discovery of death; against the crime of tragedies; against the tyranny of Italian example that had made the poets walk in one way of love, scorn, constancy, inconstancy—may have caused this trolling of unconsciousness, this tune of innocence, and this carol of liberty, to be held so dear. "I heard a maid in Bedlam," runs the old song. High and low the poets tried for that note, and the singer was ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... proceeding in the House would be no longer tolerated,—that the public tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct with unusual severity,—that the very vicissitudes and shiftings of ministerial measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy and want of system, would be taken as an occasion of charging us with a predetermined discontent which nothing could satisfy, whilst we accused every measure of vigor as cruel and every proposal of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... some way connected with the failure of the Commercial Bank, which occurred about that time, but no one who knew Sir Alexander Galt would waste time in seeking to account for his actions, which often could only be accounted for by his constitutional inconstancy. In saying this I do not for a moment wish to ascribe any sordid or unworthy motive to Galt, who was a man of large and generous mind and of high honour. He was, however, never a party man. He could not be brought to understand the necessity ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... ado, I am got loose from those fair Fetters, but not from those of her Beauty; By these she still inflames me, In spite of all my humours of Inconstancy; So soft and young, so fair and innocent, So full of Air, and yet of Languishment; So much of Nature in her Heart and Eyes, So timorous and so kind without disguise: Such untaught Sweets in every part do move, As 'gainst my Reason does ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... contribute to his artistic development; but it is nevertheless hardly open to doubt that Sterne's philandering propensities did exercise an influence upon his literary character and work in more ways than one. That his marriage was an ill-assorted and unhappy union was hardly so much the cause of his inconstancy as its effect. It may well be, of course, that the "dear L.," whose moral and mental graces her lover had celebrated in such superfine, sentimental fashion, was a commonplace person enough. That she was really a woman of the exquisite stolidity of Mrs. Shandy, and that her exasperating feats ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... that lies my special talent. Her inconstancy was mere frivolity, unrestrained imagination. It was necessary to change that disposition of hers, but you have no idea of her attachment to me. But ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Jeffrey and the young heiress. This and his previous attentions to Cora had made much talk, both in Washington and elsewhere, and there were not lacking those who had openly twitted him for his seeming inconstancy. This had been over the cups of course, and Jeffrey had borne it well enough from his so-called friends and intimates. But when, on a certain evening in the parlor of one of the large hotels in Atlantic City, a fellow whom nobody knew and nobody ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... been gentle, tender, most considerate, and most charitable to her weakness, never speaking of his own wrongs, never reproaching her for inconstancy. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... this inconstancy is such As thou too shalt adore; I could not love thee, Dear, so much ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... beseech. important, important, weighty. importer, to be of importance; il n'importe, no matter. imposteur, m., impostor. impuissant, powerless, impotent. impur, unclean, foul. imputer, to ascribe. inanim, inanimate, lifeless. inconnu, unknown. inconstance, f., inconstancy, restlessness, fickleness. Inde, Indus (river). Indien, m., Indian. indigne, unworthy, shameful. indompt, wild, untamed, indomitable. invitable, unavoidable. inexorable, inexorable, unmovable. infecter, to ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... most godly and most learned that be known in Europe. I come not to this Realm without their resolution; and for my assurance I have the handwritings of many; and therefore if I should move the same question again, what else should I do but either show my own ignorance and forgetfulness, or else inconstancy?" {241c} He therefore said that his opponents might themselves "write and complain upon him," and so learn "the plain minds" of the learned—but nobody took the trouble. Knox's defence was worded ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... Janet is pitying me a little, because of the minister's inconstancy," she said to herself. "Why am I laughing at it, Rosie? You must ask ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... Ah! lady, thine inconstancy Hath made my peace depart; The unwonted coldness of thine eye Hath froze thy lover's heart. Yet with the fibres of that heart Thine image dear is wove; Nor can they sever till I die Of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... as might be expected from the emotional East, exaggerate these views. Women are mostly "Sectaries of the god Wuensch"; beings of impulse, blown about by every gust of passion; stable only in instability; constant only in inconstancy. The false ascetic, the perfidious and murderous crone and the old hag-procuress who pimps like Umm Kulsum,[FN341] for mere pleasure, in the luxury of sin, are drawn with an experienced and loving hand. Yet ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... demand this of me? Marry without love! Alas, alas! The prince will charge me with inconstancy and treachery to him, and I must bear that ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and fired him with so pure an ardour that at the least hint of disrespect to his mistress, at a thought of injury to her, the whole man rose in arms. It was a strange, yet a common inconsistency; an inconstancy to evil odd enough to set The McMurrough marvelling, while common enough to commend ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... court, been drawn away from his plain consort by a plainer mistress, Arabella Churchill. His second wife, though twenty years younger than himself, and of no unpleasing face or figure, had frequent reason to complain of his inconstancy. But of all his illicit attachments the strongest was that which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... brave and generous, but of an Humour so uneasy and inconstant, that the victory over his Heart is as soon lost as won; a Slave that can add little to the Triumph of the Conqueror: but inconstancy's the Sin of all Mankind, therefore I'm resolv'd that nothing but Gold shall charm ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... individuality, if not equal to that of Squire Western, at least on a level with Partridge or Colonel Bath. There are numbers of minute touches—as, for example, his mistaking "a lion" for "Elias" when he reads prayers to the ship's company; and his quaint asseverations when exercised by the inconstancy of the wind—which show how closely Fielding studied his deaf companion. But it would occupy too large a space to examine the Journal more in detail. It is sufficient to say that after some further delays from wind and tide, the ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... place of his exile, expired on the third day of the wounds and bruises which he had received at Ephesus. This second synod has been justly branded as a gang of robbers and assassins; yet the accusers of Dioscorus would magnify his violence, to alleviate the cowardice and inconstancy of their own behavior. ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... only occasional defect, which I appear to myself to find in these poems is the inconstancy of the style. Under this name I refer to the sudden and unprepared transitions from lines or sentences of peculiar felicity—(at all events striking and original)—to a style, not only unimpassioned but undistinguished. ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... figure, having had the honour of eight consulships, two censorships, three triumphs, one dictatorship, and the office of master of the horse; and was famous for eminent men, particularly, Salinator and the Drusi. Salinator, in his censorship [295], branded all the tribes, for their inconstancy in having made him consul a second time, as well as censor, although they had condemned him to a heavy fine after his first consulship. Drusus procured for himself and his posterity a new surname, by killing in single combat Drausus, ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... Less should I daub it o'er with transitory praise, And water-colours of these days: These days! where e'en th' extravagance of poetry Is at a loss for figures to express Men's folly, whimsies, and inconstancy, And by a faint description makes them less. Then tell us what is Fame, where shall we search for it? Look where exalted Virtue and Religion sit, Enthroned with heavenly Wit! Look where you see ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... to be done? I cannot remain as I am; I have yet resources and partisans. It is said that the Allies will no longer treat with me. Well! no matter. I will march on Paris. I will be revenged on the inconstancy of the Parisians and the baseness of the Senate. Woe to the members of the Government they have patched up for the return of their Bourbons; that is what they are looking forward to. But to-morrow I shall place myself at the head ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... her, and why? She had given him all; it was not her fault if he wearied of her tyranny. No; he alone was to blame, his inconstancy, his weakness. He poured forth a torrent of self-reproach, and words of love, and she responded passionately. Once more they were lovers, thrilling to each other's touch. And the wan moon looked on at their transports, and perchance the pale wraith of the Countess of ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... cannot help remarking that this circuit of the wind from SW. by W. to NW. or N., from our insular position, imparts to our climate its fickleness and inconstancy. How often will our brightest sky become suffused by the blackest vapours on the slightest breach of SW. wind, and the clouds will then disappear as speedily as they formed, when the NW. upper current forces their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... at the height, Whene'er I think Of the hot barons, of the fickle people, And the inconstancy of power, I tremble For thee, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... visit from Margaret Wilmot. I was very cool to her at first; for though you never told me why your engagement to her was so abruptly broken off, I could not but think she was in some manner to blame, since I knew you too well, my darling boy, to believe you capable of inconstancy or unkindness. I thought, therefore, that her visit was very ill-timed, and I let her see that my feelings towards her were ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... practice of making "maxims," axiomata, encouraged the enlivenment of conversation by the introduction of topsy-turvy statements, such as "Constancy is merely inconstancy arrested," in the manner of ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse
... Viola without any other reason than the discovery of Viola's sex. In the same way Romeo turns from Rosaline to Juliet at first sight. This trait has been praised by Coleridge and others as showing singular knowledge of a young man's character, but I should rather say that inconstancy was a characteristic of sensuality and belonged to Shakespeare himself, for Orsino, like Romeo, has no reason to change his love; and the curious part of the matter is that Shakespeare does not seem to think that ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... seat. From her position he could see little more than her dark eyes, which occasionally seemed to meet his frank curiosity in an amused sort of way, but he was chiefly struck by the pretty foreign sound of her musical voice, which was unlike anything he had ever heard before, and—alas for the inconstancy of youth—much finer than Mrs. Peyton's. Presently his farmer companion, casting a patronizing glance on Clarence's pea-jacket ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... were not spared when the deviated from the right path, what will he do to the darkness of this our age, in which, besides all the huge and heinous sins, which it has common with all the wicked of the world committed, is found an innate, indelible, and irremediable load of folly and inconstancy?" "What, wretched man (I say to myself) is it given to you, as if you were an illustrious and learned teacher, to oppose the force of so violent a torrent, and keep the charge committed to you against such a series of inveterate crimes ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... promise-crammed," it would be as idle to assume a reminiscence of a passage of Montaigne on the chameleon[55] as it would be to derive Hamlet's phrase "A king of shreds and patches" from Florio's rendering in the essay[56] OF THE INCONSTANCY ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... his defence. But one thing I will say, I have not intended to deceive you. I did love you, and felt at the time all that I professed. Had you loved me less, I had been more constant. But why, let me ask, have you sought me here, to upbraid me for my inconstancy? What good can it do to you or to me? You call me a wretch: and I acknowledge myself to be one, a vile, ungrateful wretch. Call me a thief, if you will, if the word does not blister your tongue to utter it. I confess it all. Now ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... that queer fraternity that causes stones and trees and salt water and clouds to play upon our emotions. Why are we made serious and solemn and sublime by mountain heights, grave and contemplative by an abundance of overhanging trees, reduced to inconstancy and monkey capers by the ripples on a sandy beach? Did the protoplasm—but enough. The chemists are looking into the matter, and before long they will have all life in ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... esteem for Miss Mancel's merit, could conquer her aversion to their union. She saw them both unhappy, but was convinced the pangs they felt would not be of very long continuance, trusting to the usual inconstancy of young persons, while the inconveniencies attending an incumbered fortune, and the disgrace which she imagined must be the consequence of Sir Edward's marrying a woman of obscure birth, would be permanent and influence the whole ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... quitted their post at the bridge and retreated in great disorder and confusion to the main body, who were soon upon the march to meet them. For half an hour the enemy, by their marches and countermarches, 15 discovered great fickleness and inconstancy of mind, sometimes advancing, sometimes returning to their former posts, till at length they quitted the town and retreated by the way they came. In the meantime a party of our men (one hundred and fifty) took the back way through 20 the great fields into the ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... desire to be advertised touching the proceedings here in ecclesiastical causes, because you seem to note in them some inconstancy and variation, as if we sometimes inclined to one side, sometimes to another, as if that clemency and lenity were not used of late that was used in the beginning, all which you impute to your own superficial understanding ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... in order to gratify his spite. He of course became the prey of intriguers and sycophants,—of persons who understand the art of managing minds which are at once arbitrary and weak, by allowing them to retain unity of will amid the most palpable inconsistencies of opinion, so that inconstancy to principle shall not weaken force of purpose, nor the emphasis be at all abated with which they may bless to-day what yesterday they cursed. Thus the abhorrer of traitors has now become their tool. Thus ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... our own, and who feel ridicule inflicted on us, as disgrace heaped on themselves. A peculiar evil of these confidential friendships is, that they are most liable to occur, when, from their youth, their victims are the least guarded; and, at the same time, from inconstancy, the most liable to change. Happily, however, for Julia's peace of mind, she foresaw no such dangers from her intimacy with Anna, and letter and answer passed between them, at short intervals, during the remainder of the summer. We shall give but one more specimen of each, ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... Inconstancy of False Religion, 34 Fruitfulness of True Piety, 34 Fruits of the True and False Professor contrasted, 35 Fruit-bearing the test of Christian Character, 36 The Fruits of the Spirit, 36 Love, as in the Experience of David, 37 Manifested in ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... gloom over the village; those who would not venture to go were sullen and melancholy, and the woman were crying and imploring the Great Spirit to protect their warriors as if they were going to certain destruction: yet such is the wavering inconstancy of these savages, that captain Lewis's party had not gone far when they were joined by ten or twelve more warriors, and before reaching the creek which they had passed on the morning of the 13th, all the men of the nation and a number of women had overtaken ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... converts in Rome, 2; attitude of the government toward, 11; evidence of the graffiti on, 12; difficulties and inconstancy of Christian converts, 14; mixed marriages, 15; friendly relations between pagans and Christians, 16; military service under the Empire, 18; the gradual change under Constantine, 20; spread of Christianity under Gregory the Great, 228; the persecutions under Nero and later emperors, ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... inconstancy, False hearts, and broken vows If I by miracle can be This live-long minute true to thee, 'Tis all ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... universality of the kind, not in itself doth abide: Man a long line of years hath continued, This man every hundred is swept away. This globe environed with air is the sole region of Death, the grave where everything that taketh life must rot, the stage of fortune and change, only glorious in the inconstancy and varying alterations of it, which though many, seem yet to abide one, and being a certain entire one, are ever many. The never agreeing bodies of the elemental brethren turn one into another; the earth ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Shenstone's Pastoral on Absence, the tenderness and simplicity of which I greatly admire. A man who is in love is like a man who has got the tooth-ache, he feels most acute pain while nobody pities him. In that situation am I at present: but well do I know that I will not be long so. So much for inconstancy. As this is my first epistle to you, it cannot in decency be a long one. Pray write to me soon. Your letters, I prophecy, will entertain me not a little; and will besides be extremely serviceable in many important respects. They will supply me with oil to my ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... my friend Blaize," replied Pillichody. "It was agreed between us that if you showed any inconstancy, you ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a good wife any sum might be given. But the saddest sight which came under my observation was the way in which some licentious-looking men began a cool, deliberate inspection of a certain divorced culprit who had been sent back to the market for inconstancy to her husband. She had learnt a sense of decency during her conjugal life, and the blushes on her face now clearly showed how her heart was mortified at this unseemly exposure, made worse because ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... before he can feel them to be demoniacal; so also John Bunyan: both of them, I think, having firmer faith than Milton's in their own creations, and deeper insight into the nature of sin. Milton makes his fiends too noble, and misses the foulness, inconstancy, and fury of wickedness. His Satan possesses some virtues, not the less virtues for being applied to evil purpose. Courage, resolution, patience, deliberation in council, this latter being eminently a wise and holy character, as opposed to the "Insania" of excessive sin: and all ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... eloquence of passion that was yet too plain to be misunderstood—not reflecting, he, that maiden blushes may have more sources than one. The hot torrent of Bessie's rose from the fountain of indignation in her heart—indignation at his inconstancy to the sweet lady who she knew loved him, and his impertinence in daring to address herself when she knew he loved that lady. She silently confessed that to this upshot his poor pretences of wooing had tended from the first, and that she had been wilfully half ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... the vices of the rich; whereby he merely torments himself, and shows the world that he is intolerant, not only of his own poverty, but also of other people's riches. So, again, those who have been ill received by a woman they love think of nothing but the inconstancy, treachery, and other stock faults of the fair sex; all of which they consign to oblivion, directly they are again taken into favour by their sweetheart. Thus he who would govern his emotions and appetite solely by the love ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... thine hope On the false earth's inconstancy? 20 Did thine own mind afford no scope Of love, or moving thoughts to thee? That natural scenes or human smiles Could steal the power to wind thee in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... principal object was "to stem the torrent of prejudice and vice." He did not limit himself to making amusement out of the affectation of the day; he often directed his humour to higher ends. He deprecated inconstancy, observing that a gentleman who presumed to pay attention to a lady, should bring with him a character from the one he had lately left. He must be especially commended for having been one of the first to advocate consideration for the lower animals, and to condemn swearing ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... rather question-begging, but he was so thrilled by the implicit revelation that she could not even imagine feminine inconstancy, that he forebore to draw her attention to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... first act was to crown King Henry in the Vatican. Gregory retired to the castle of San Angelo, and the giddy populace greeted the anti-pope with shouts of joy. A severe chastisement awaited their perfidy and inconstancy. Robert Guiscard was advancing with thirty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry, and Henry fled before the redoubtable prince, whom he had provoked by an alliance with Alexis, the Emperor of the East. Abandoned by Henry, who had returned to Austria, the treacherous Romans ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... yet too good a heart to approve the treachery.—But to return to the marquis, we shall mention another of his juvenile fights, as an instance to what extravagant and unaccountable excesses, the inconstancy of his temper ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... Tenorio, for he is an abstract, with the lines somewhat subdued by the advance of civilisation, of the national character. For them his vices, his treachery, his heartlessness, have nothing repellent; nor does his inconstancy rob him of feminine sympathy. He is, indeed, a far greater favourite with the ladies than John Bull. The Englishman they respect, they know he will make a good husband and a model father; but he is too ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... monkeys more than any other animal by the gift of imitation, the frivolity of our ideas, and by our inconstancy which has never allowed us to have uniform ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... gentleman—upon whose track it is expedient to follow with hurried steps, lest this history should be chargeable with inconstancy, and the offence of leaving its characters in situations of uncertainty and doubt—Kit's mother and the single gentleman, speeding onward in the post-chaise-and-four whose departure from the Notary's door we have already witnessed, soon left the town behind them, and struck ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... revolutions; that the same things have in the several parts of his life been condemned and approved, pursued and shunned: and that on many occasions, even when his practice has been steady, his mind has been wavering, and he has persisted in a scheme of action, rather because he feared the censure of inconstancy, than because he was always pleased with his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... however, if they be examined by the true rules of criticism, no such contradiction will be found. Farther, if, as I have advanced in years, conversation with able men, and a more perfect examination, have made me change my sentiments, I ought not on that account to be accused of inconstancy, no more than St. Augustin, who retracted many things." He again touches on this point in his Votum pro pace[633]. "If in my youth, says he, having less knowledge than now, the prejudices of education, or a blind attachment to authors of same, carried me too great lengths, ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... sentiments or their generous confidence in their fellow-creatures. Such was not his destiny. There was something about him which looked as if he would not take bullying kindly. He had also the advantage of being acquainted with most of those ingenious devices by which the proverbial inconstancy of fortune is steadied to something more nearly approaching fixed laws, and the dangerous risks which have so often led young men to ruin and suicide are practically reduced to somewhat less than nothing. So that Mr. Richard Veneer worked off his nervous energies ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a defence of inconstancy, or of the right of experiment in love; and is addressed by a husband to his wife, whose supposed and very natural comments the monologue reflects. The speaker's implied name of Don Juan sufficiently tells us what we are meant to think of his arguments; and ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... that made it great and happy; and now that traitor honour heads the mutineers within; honour, whom my late mighty fears had almost famish'd and brought to nothing, warm'd and reviv'd by thy new-protested flames, makes war against almighty love! and I, who but now nobly resolv'd for love, by an inconstancy natural to my sex, or rather my fears, am turn'd over to honour's side: so the despairing man stands on the river's bank, design'd to plunge into the rapid stream, 'till coward-fear seizing his timorous soul, he views around once more the flowery plains, and looks with wishing ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... shows itself in a daily irritability quite new in the household, apparently causeless, full of sudden, inexplicable turns of thought and act which turn the peaceful into a tempestuous home. It is not that the husband or the wife are inconstant by nature—to call Fifine at the Fair a defence of inconstancy is to lose the truth of the matter—but it is the desire of momentary change, of a life set free from conventional barriers, of an outburst into the unknown, of the desire for new experiences, for something ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... ceremony with public vows?" And here I must follow a somewhat different line of thought which may at first sight seem contradictory. In spite of all that I have said, I believe that even ardent lovers are all the better for being bound, because of the wayward element of inconstancy in human nature. Thousands of married persons have never once been conscious of their vows. They have never come near thinking, "We must hold together because we promised," or "We must make the best of things because we are tied together." Thousands have never for a moment wanted to change their ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... public life. By repelling worthy men from your legislative assemblies, it has bred up a class of candidates for the suffrage, who, in their every act, disgrace your Institutions and your people's choice. It has rendered you so fickle, and so given to change, that your inconstancy has passed into a proverb; for you no sooner set up an idol firmly, than you are sure to pull it down and dash it into fragments: and this, because directly you reward a benefactor, or a public-servant, you distrust him, merely because he IS ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... it may be remarked to-day are, in all the maritime coasts, the implacable Corsairs of Barbary. For, however great may be the dangers of which we have just spoken, and no matter now many examples they may see of the fury and inconstancy of Neptune, they cease not their irritating performances, kindling warfare in all the coasts of the Christian nations. It is there that they exercise their infamous piracies, and there also that they glory in the most shameful of all ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... fact, we were richer. The captain had the usual sailor's provision of quack medicines, with which, in the usual sailor fashion, he would daily drug himself, displaying an extreme inconstancy, and flitting from Kennedy's Red Discovery to Kennedy's White, and from Hood's Sarsaparilla to Mother Seigel's Syrup. And there were, besides, some mildewed and half-empty bottles, the labels obliterated, over which Nares would sometimes ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... in a tremor of fear. I pulled from my bosom a little book like the one Leperello exhibits in the opera of "Don Giovanni." There, I said, was a record of my flirtation and inconstancy. I waited long for the decision, but it ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... from him I have gained that, during your captivity, you were much with Miss Montgomerie, (he pronounced the name with an involuntary shuddering), all I ask, therefore, is whether your wretchedness proceeds from the rejection of your suit, or from any levity or inconstancy you may have ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... that misfortune is not made to win respect from ordinary minds. I know that there is a leaning to prosperity, however obtained, and a prejudice in its favor. I know there is a disposition to hope something from the variety and inconstancy of villany, rather than from the tiresome uniformity of fixed principle. There have been, I admit, situations in which a guiding person or party might be gained over, and through him or them the whole body of a nation. For the hope of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of the sea, that they might not be a hinderance to me."[23] Brave mother of Henry the Fourth! Well would it have been, both for her son and for France, if that son had inherited more of Jeanne d'Albret's devotion to truth, and less of his father's lewdness and inconstancy! ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... fellow who was never young; he is like a dull Italian year, where the trees are always in leaf, and when the only way of knowing the difference of the seasons is by referring to an almanack. The inconstancy of the spring may surely be excused for the steady warmth of summer and the rich plenty of autumn; then comes the hoar of winter old gentleman, and closes the scene ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 337, October 25, 1828. • Various
... solemnity of the lines, the rigidity of the nose, the form of the bony structure which wounds alone had slightly altered,—all were signs of intrepidity without calculation, faith without reserve, obedience without discussion, fidelity without compromise, love without inconstancy. In him, the Breton granite was ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... Is there any inconstancy in ceasing to love when one is not loved? Is there inconstancy in changing one's ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... the enemy, by their marches and countermarches, discovered great fickleness and inconstancy of mind,—sometimes advancing, sometimes returning to their former posts; till at length they quitted the town and retreated by the way they came. In the meantime, a party of our men (one hundred and fifty), took the back way through the Great Fields into the East Quarter, and ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... the Evening I visited Madam Winthrop, who Treated me Courteously, but not in Clean Linen as somtimes. She said, she did not know whether I would come again, or no. I ask'd her how she could so impute inconstancy to me. (I had not visited her since Wednesday night being unable to get over the Indisposition received by the Treatment received that night, and I must in it seem'd to sound like a made piece of Formality.) ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... humour than we should expect from a man who out of the thirty-four years of his life, was for five of them continually drunk. He nearly always attunes his harp to the old subject, so as to become hopelessly monotonous. Inconstancy has great charms for him, and he consequently imputes it also ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... ha, ha! twa excellent similes, I vow, Mr. Egerton.— Excellent! for they illustrate the vagaries and inconstancy of my dissipated heart as exactly as if you had meant to ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... is hardest, to obtain a person's love, or to keep it when obtained? A. It is hardest to keep it, by reason of the inconstancy of man, who is quickly angry, and soon weary of a thing; hard to be gained and slippery ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... gloss over your first inconstancy, sir,' she said, archly; but he was spared from further reply by Philip Sidney's coming to tell him that the Ambassador was ready to return home. He took leave with an alacrity that redoubled his courtesy so much that he desired to ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my two dear little wives sparkling with pleasure, and they reconquered all their influence over my heart in spite of my love for Therese, whose image was, all the same, brilliant in my soul: this was a passing infidelity, but not inconstancy. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... had no agency therein, nor have I conceived a thought on the subject that has not been disclosed to you with the utmost sincerity and frankness of heart. And now, notwithstanding the insinuations, which are implied in your letter, of the vicissitudes of friendship and the inconstancy of mine, I will pronounce with decision that it ever has been, and, notwithstanding the unkindness of the charge, ever will be, for aught I know to the contrary, warm ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... possible, had an indescribable air of care and taste that added to the effect of grace and pleasantness, and made Rachel feel convinced in a moment that the wonder would have been not in constancy to such a creature but in inconstancy. The notion that any one could turn from that brilliant, beaming, refined face to her own, struck her with a sudden humiliation. There was plenty of conversation, and her voice was not immediately wanted; indeed, she hardly attended to what was passing, and really dreaded outstaying the brother ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cino and rallied him about his inconstancy, calls the Pistojese worthy of the Beast[141] who dwelt among them; Petrarch calls them i cittadin perversi; the truth being that the Neri were in power and had exiled ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... courageous, yet so like cowards; so interesting, yet so resolute to forfeit all honourable claims to interest. In thinking of them, we can but shake our heads with Lord Chancellor Audeley, when meditating on this rebellion, and repeat after him, "they be a people of strange nature, and of much inconstancy."[374] ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... her affection, and, perhaps, some lightness, or even falsity, on the part of Rosania, led to a rupture. The indignant and unhappy Orinda expressed her sorrows in several heartfelt poems, one of which bears the superscription, "To the Queen of Inconstancy, Regina Collier:" ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... him forgetful of Delia. He frequently thought of her, wished to see her, and longed for the next breaking-up, that he might re-enjoy that satisfaction, as he knew she intended to stay the whole winter at his father's; but now arrived the time to prove the inconstancy of human nature: he became acquainted with some other little misses, and by degrees found charms in them, which made those he had observed in Delia appear less admirable in his eyes; the fondness he had felt ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... the lightest presumption of his wife's fidelity would have been more delicious than the absolute restoration of all his jewels, and who, indeed, had with the utmost difficulty been brought to entertain the slightest suspicion of her inconstancy, immediately abandoned all distrust of both her and his friend, whose sincerity (luckily for Wild's purpose) seemed to him to depend on the same evidence. He then embraced our hero, who had in his countenance all the symptoms of the deepest concern, and begged ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding |
