"Fickle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would ten times rather have heard what they said than to listen to the cheers of the multitude; for he knew that love and friendship endure, while the admiration of the crowd is as fickle as the weather, praising one day and on the ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... from history as it has been; neither do we think that any desirable effect has been gained by this change. In history, Rienzi is a master-spirit of reckless and atrocious daring, but in the drama, he is softened down to a fickle liberty brawler, and the sternest of his vices are glossed over with an almost inconsistent show of affection and tenderness. As he there stands, he is rather like an injured man, than one who so liberally dealt oppression and injustice ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... enormous wickedness. In the sixteenth century, Queen Catherine was an obstacle to the establishment of the kingdom, an incentive to treasonable hopes. In the nineteenth, she is an outraged and injured wife, the victim of a false husband's fickle appetite. The story is a long and painful one, and on its personal side need not concern us here further than as it illustrates the private character of Henry. Into the public bearing of it I must enter at some length, in order to explain the interest with which the nation threw itself into the ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... was gone, the child was told that the name of Bugbee was thereafter to be appended to those she already bore; and being quite pleased with the notion, she forthwith adopted her new appellative, retaining it for several years, until (such is the fickle nature of women) she took a fancy to change it for another which she liked better still. She was also taught to call her grandparents papa and mamma; and though, while a child, she continued to address Miss Cornelia by the title of "Aunty," ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... throwing himself on his knees and mastering his wife's hand. "Grisell, Grisell, dost think I could turn to the feather-pated, dull-souled, fickle-hearted thing I know now Eleanor of Audley to be, ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Fortune at your time of life, Although a female moderately fickle, Will hardly leave you (as she's not your wife) For any length of days in such a pickle. To strive, too, with our fate were such a strife As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle: Men are the sport of circumstances, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... little we have left to get him the title and estate of Lord Strutt; and then forsooth, we shall have the honour to be his woollen-drapers.** Besides, Esquire South will be Esquire South still; fickle, proud, and ungrateful. If he behaves himself so when he depends on us for his daily bread, can any man say what he will do when he is got above ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... his work was done, and he had time now to ponder upon his ups and downs, hardly able to believe that at last he was really on his homeward journey. He felt far more confident in the care of bluff Captain Hillgrove than in that of the fickle Peruvians. ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... I am best left alone now, and I do best to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe that what I am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am not of my own will, or for myself. Believe, though we are stranger to each other than we have been, that I am unchanged to you within. Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... later period, addressing a meeting of young men, he said: "Turn a cold shoulder to the bookmaker and those who would advise you to throw your money into the lap of fickle Fortune If you want to be happy. You might just as well throw the money into ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... bitterly regret their folly, and the very idea that there exists somewhere a packet of letters which would bring serious trouble, if not ruin, upon them and those they love, is a cause of constant grief and worry. I know that there are letters written by one once dear, but now perhaps turned fickle or false, or separated from us forever, from which we feel loath to part; but we must be men and reduce to ashes what would hurt in the very least degree or cast a reflection upon an innocent if silly woman. Suppose you ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... departed from Munich, he probably thought that he was leaving behind him forever, not only the fickle Aloysia, but the rest of the Weber family as well. How slight our premonition of fate! For, if ever the inscrutable ways of Providence brought two people together, those two were Mozart and Constance Weber. Nor was Aloysia without further ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... surprising thing—her marrying him so suddenly. But, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I have never quite made up my mind that Ethel was really fickle. She did it out of pique, or pride, or impulse, or whatever it is that sways women in such cases. She was angry, or indignant—how like fire and ice at once she was when she was angry!—and she was resolved ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... high estate of pride, With what untimely speed they glide, How soon depart! Bid not the shadowy phantoms stay, The vassals of a mistress they, Of fickle heart. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... heaped upon Montfort by the weak and fickle King, who would far better have understood him, if, like the selfish kinsmen who encircled the throne, he had struggled for his own advantage, and not for the maintenance of the Great Charter. Richard was too young to remember the early days when his elder brothers had been companions, ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... city bold Belonged to us In days of old." Said Nellie, "Here Prince Arthur wept— By cruel John A prisoner kept. Here Joan of Arc Was tried and burned, When fickle fate Against her turned." Said Rose, "Oh dear! It makes me sad To think what trouble People had Who lived once in This very town, Where we walk ...
— Abroad • Various
... that was all explained and settled? Southern girls are not fickle or false to their word." And she managed to assume an aspect of great dignity. "If I do not shake him off in the next few minutes I'm lost," ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... out into all filthy lusts, and transgressions of all laws, both of nature and civility. Many things which they have left off, after a while they fall to again, husbandry, navigation; and leave again, fickle and inconstant as they are. When they are young, they would be old, and old, young. [243] Princes commend a private life; private men itch after honour: a magistrate commends a quiet life; a quiet man would be in his office, and obeyed as he is: and what is the cause of all this, but that they ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... to death, Peter went one day to see her, prepared to make any amends in his power for his brother's sin. And beside the sofa where the girl lay he met Joan Whitby. And such are the vagaries of human nature, with its beginning on that day, the gay, light heart, the fickle fancies, light loves, wild escapades of the devil-may-care young sportsman, all vanished away into thin air before a love that filled his whole being. Lovelier, gayer, cleverer women, ready enough to meet the heir of Richard Fourtenay-Carew halfway, had left ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Round Table was one who was a mixture of good and bad, as indeed most people are. His name was Sir Ivaine; brave, kind-hearted, and merry; but at the same time fickle, sometimes forgetful of his promises, and inclined to ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... flower of her small dynasty, Lucia came. Lucia, with her music and her youth and her indestructible charm. And the little court, fickle by its very nature, went over bodily to Lucia! To Lucia who did not want it, who would much rather have been without it, but must needs encourage it, play to it, sympathize with it, just to satisfy ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... in his pose and manner, however, much of that old grace which had first endeared him to Elizabeth, and even now served to fix her fickle favor. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... of the ancient faith was atrophied by the indifference of the people, and the zealous attempt to galvanise a moribund creed into fresh life failed even to arrest the progress of decay. National thought, fickle as the wind, had turned from an impersonal philosophy to the materialistic cult of Hindu deities, as the Israelites of old hankered after the visible symbol of Isis and Osiris in the Golden Calf. ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... who fell by the wayside, and her feet were swift on errands of mercy; the heart of her husband had trusted in her; he had left her to long hours of solitude, while he amused himself in scenes in which she had no part. When boon companions deserted him, when fickle affection selfishly departed, when pleasure palled, he went home and found her ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... russet and gold on a background of hazy blue mountains, back to a winter as in the Christmas carol about Good King Wenceslaus. All this is theory; in reality the weather here, as elsewhere, is not to be trusted, though, indeed, it is not as fickle as that of our own dear country. Still, the people cling to their theory about the climate of the country, and if perchance the theory does not fit, there is always an "oldest inhabitant" handy to declare ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... a fitting opportunity for an ambitious and courageous woman who, though she might not find full measure of happiness and love which only comes with respect, yet would meet with adventure, would dare fate and hazard chance with fickle fortune. The prospect to her mind was more pleasing than to be the wife of a gentleman farmer and grow fat and matronly—the other chance ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... their fulfillment would be our keenest disappointment? For instance, the wife of our family physician is forever lamenting that no spouse in all New Jedboro sees as little of her husband as does she, forever longing that he might be released to the enjoyment of his own fireside. Yet should a fickle or convalescent public suddenly so release him, our doctor's wife would be of all women ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... Fickle Eleanor! Where was the promise that she would make no choice for herself without her father's approval? She had chosen, and now demanded his acquiescence. "Oh, Papa, isn't he good? Isn't he noble? Isn't he religious, high-minded, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... every human being there must come, sooner or later, a present so sad and desolate, that the beautiful past is all he has to live upon. Remember this handsome prince in silence, bid him farewell when he departs to his native country, but beware of hoping to see him again. The Persians are fickle and inconstant, lovers of everything new and foreign. The prince has been fascinated by thy sweetness and grace. He loves thee ardently now, but remember, he is young and handsome, courted by every one, and a Persian. Give him up that he may not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... will keep my word. But to recall her would be poor indeed: Nor will I do it, though I love her still. And former commerce binds me strongly to her. —I can't but weep, to think how sad and lonely My future life will be.—Oh fickle fortune! How transient are thy smiles!—But I've been school'd To patience by my former hapless passion, Which I subdued by reason: and I'll try By reason to subdue this too.—But yonder Comes Parmeno, I see, with th' ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... honour upon themselves and their art, in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... Planner was very great, and I will not say undeserved; still some account should have been taken of his previous habits, and the positive abiding infirmity of human nature. It was surely dangerous to surround a man so fickle, and so easily led by the delusions of his sanguine spirit, with every temptation to walk astray, and to remove every check that had hitherto kept down the capricious movements of his most unsteady will. The daily, almost hourly presence of Allcraft, his vigorous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... swallow, sir?" touching an imaginary cap. "Shall I say that 'Dark and true and tender is the North,' and 'Fierce and false and fickle is the South,' or any ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... her—seriously. And his thoughts were far from fickle as he watched her now, riding within a few feet of him, her profile toward him, her head having a rigid set, her chin held high, her lips tight-pressed, and her hair drooping in graceful coils over her ears, and bulging in alluring disorder at ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... was at home all the old glee and enjoyment of life returned. There was, moreover, the curate, "bonnie, pleasant, light-hearted, good-tempered, generous, careless, crafty, fickle, and unclerical," to add piquancy to the situation. "He sits opposite to Anne at church, sighing softly, and looking out of the corners of his eyes—and she is so quiet, her look so downcast; they are a picture," ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... the admiral said. "All governments are ungrateful, and republics most of all. Where all are supposed to be equal, there is ever envy and jealousy against one who rises above the rest. The multitude is fickle and easily led; and the first change of fortune, however slight, is seized upon by enemies as a cause of complaint, and the popular hero of today may be an exile tomorrow. Like enough I shall see the inside of a Venetian ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... and fickle winds brought us through the Channel and well on our way to Yarmouth Roads, off which we understood Admiral Duncan was lying. As we passed the Downs, strange and ugly rumours of trouble ahead met ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... maid, who would have been set right, in the time of the Tudors, with a sound ducking; and nowadays, had she consulted a fashionable physician, she would have been probably ordered a sea-voyage, and a diet free from stimulants. The Pastor is a feeble, fickle fool, who seemingly has had but one sensible idea in his life. He has believed his wife to be mad, and, considering that she married him, his faith in the matter rested upon evidence of an entirely convincing nature. The Rector Kroll is a prig and a bore of the first water. When he discovers ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. March 14, 1891. • Various
... with the bark on the road?" In imagination she could hear Pixie putting the question in the years to come, and Bridgie would remember quite well, because she had not the faculty of forgetting, but other people—other people were reputedly fickle, and tempted to forget old friends in favour of new! Other people would probably be in love with a fair-haired beauty by that time, and have forgotten ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... far beyond the waters The fickle feet may roam, But they find no light so pure and bright As the one fair star of home; The star of tender hearts, lady, That glows in an ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... think that Man is a god are in error. We see man moving by law, growing up, and waxing old, even against his will. Now he rejoiceth, now he grieveth, requiring meat and drink and raiment. Besides he is passionate, envious, lustful, fickle, and full of failings: and he perisheth in many a way, by the elements, by wild beasts, and by the death that ever awaiteth him. So Man cannot be a god, but only the work of God. Great then is the error that the Chaldeans have erred in following their own lusts; for they worship corruptible elements ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... has said, that never turns again, And Fate, though fickle, often gives another chance to men. And Casey smiled—his rugged face no longer wore a frown; The pitcher who had started all the ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... more virulent than either, soon drew the strength out of his body: close study and high living had made the joints less supple than Derrick Trull's: he lay there limp and unable,—his brain alert, but fickle. It put the watery death out of sight, and brought his familiar every-day life about him: the dissecting-room; curious cases that had puzzled him; drawing-rooms, beautiful women; he sang airs from the operas, sad, broken little snatches, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... down, mourned lonesomely at the northwest corner of the cabin, as if it felt the desolateness of the barren, icy hills and the black hollows between, and of the angry red sky with its purple shadows lowering over the unhappy land—and would make fickle friendship with some human thing. Charming Billy, hearing the crooning wail of it, knew well the portent and sighed. Perhaps he, too, felt something of the desolateness without and perhaps he, too, longed ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... with the assurance that if the post fell into Proctor's hands it would be in a manner to do him more honor than any surrender could do. The fight then continued until the British general found his fickle savage friends deserting him, and on the 12th day raised ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... way; Nor asks of God, but of her stars, to give The mighty blessing, 'while we live, to live.' Then for all death, that opiate of the soul! Lucretia's dagger, Rosamonda's bowl. Say, what can cause such impotence of mind? A spark too fickle, or a spouse too kind. Wise wretch! with pleasures too refined to please; With too much spirit to be e'er at ease; With too much quickness ever to be taught; With too much thinking to have common thought: ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... natural consequence of his silence, which had not occurred to him before. But he was learning to keep his feelings under control, to set his face and his teeth against the regular reactions of his coward conscience and his fickle will. And once again did Dr. Baumgartner atone for an unintentional minor by striking a rousing chord on the very heart-strings ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... head. The end must come, and that before long. The slaves will unquestionably be freed, and the only question for us is how to soften the blow. There is no doubt that our slaves, both at the Orangery and at the other plantations, are contented and happy; but you know how fickle and easily led the negroes are, and in the excitement of finding them selves free and able to go where they please, you may be sure that the greater number will wander away. My proposal is, that we should at once mark out ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... widened; his innuendo had been skilfully parried. "When you get to be my age," he said, "you will doubtless take your politics more calmly. I never lose sleep now over the vicissitudes of those whom the fickle crowd has raised to honour. How does the line run? Hunc, si mobilium turba Quiritium—but you probably remember your Horace better than ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... seventeenth century, the dissensions of these two factions again threatened to make government impossible. In administration the evil was felt most; the union of ministers of both parties was proving unworkable. So fickle did legislation become that no one could say one day what the House would do the next. It was at this crisis, and about the year 1693, that William III., who cared more for a strong administration than for political differences, ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... was raising him to his feet. Marahna was beside him, robed in the golden garment of the priest. She placed her hands beside his face to turn him toward the further wall. The light was fickle, but it showed him, as it rose and fell, the blackened, swollen body of the monster, still writhing in its death struggle. And beside it, blasted and charred, the head of the obscene sun god, severed by the cutting, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... ever awake and her tender heart filled with remorse for the sorrow she had caused the Queen. The brief years of enchantment were soon over, to be followed by disillusionment, when it was revealed to Louise that the fickle heart of Louis had succumbed to other charms; the final flight from court and the long years of repentance at ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Davenport is gone, of fickle fame forgot, And Barrett sleeps forever in a much neglected spot; Fred Warde, the papers tell me, in far woolly western lands Still flaunts the banner of high Tragic Art at one-night stands; And Jack and I, in Charley Hoyt's Bostonian dramas wreak Our vengeance on creation at some eensty dolls per ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... have known him, and his father before him too, to break more promises than five, as great as this is that he should here make with you. Who shall come and cast it in his teeth, and tell him it is a shame for him to be so fickle and so false of his promise? And then what careth he for those words that he knoweth well he shall never hear? Not very much, though they were ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... a strangely unbalanced man. He was magnetic, his geniality was really heart-warming, yet he was perfectly cold- blooded in his selfishness. He was cool and calculating, but interference roused him to an almost insane pitch of passion. Fickle in most things, he was uncompromising in his hatreds. O'Neil's generosity in affording sanctuary to his defiant mistress struck him as a personal affront, it fanned his dislike of his rival into a consuming rage. It was with no thought of profit that he cast about for a means of crippling ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... together and explained that he came as their ally, and not as their foe, and that if they would join with him they should be citizens of the American republic, and treated in all respects on an equality with their comrades. The Creoles, caring little for the British, and rather fickle of nature, accepted the proposition with joy, and with the most enthusiastic loyalty toward Clark. Not only that, but sending messengers to their kinsmen on the Wabash, they persuaded the people of Vincennes ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... Parliament, one half of a session passed in amending the mismanagement of the other. For my own part, I really believe that there is nothing like one mind, one wise and good ruler; and I verily believe that the President of France is that man. My only doubt being whether the people are worthy of him, fickle as they are, like all great masses,—the French people, in particular. By the way, if a most vilely translated book, called the "Prisoner of Ham," be extant in French, I should like to possess it. The account of the escape looks true, and is ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... is a very bleak one, and the climate cold and fickle. In order to provide against a late spring frost, a coil of one inch pipe was inclosed in brick work, with a fire chamber under it. From this coil a single one inch pipe was carried around the house next the side sashes. It is found to answer the purpose, having ...
— Woodward's Graperies and Horticultural Buildings • George E. Woodward
... point of view of the Church, which is of a more human nature. This is fallible and fickle, but, though perpetually changing, it will last as long as there are weak human beings. The light of cloudless divine revelation is far too pure and radiant for poor, weak man. But the Church interposes as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... thou not me!" the Deep Voice cried, "So long enjoyed, so oft misused Alternate, in thy fickle pride, Desired, neglected, ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... year after year subject-pictures continued to be painted on an ambitious scale, which after a few months' exhibition on the walls of Burlington House passed to their tomb in provincial museums, or reappeared as ghosts in the sale-room only to fetch a derisory price and to illustrate the fickle vagaries in the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... such like injudicious things are said even by some who ought to have more discretion. People talk without thinking, or make such statements to cover their own shortcomings and faults. Why shall they not stand? are they in the keeping of a feeble or fickle Saviour? isn't His grace as strong as sin? is not Jesus always mightier than the devil? and have not millions of the greatest sinners who have found the Lord, stood firm against the snares of the world, and all the devices of the wicked one? "He won't stand," is an ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... common-sense tells her that a plunge into the concert field is still dangerous. Accordingly she remains two, or possibly three, more years and at the end if she has worked hard she is convinced that with proper management she may stand some chance of winning that fickle treasure, ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... did not appear; and the French, favoured by a fair wind, steered for Nitherohy, which they were all eager to reach. Nigel's heart beat with anxiety. Besides knowing that the Portuguese, in considerable force, were in the neighbourhood, and being uncertain as to the fidelity of the fickle Indians, he could not forget his suspicions regarding Villegagnon, and he dreaded to hear that the governor had carried out the treacherous designs which he believed him to entertain. All eyes were directed towards the island-fortress, as the ship sailed up the harbour. Great was the satisfaction ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... were there around her to make farther, wider ranges, Where her loving gentle spirit could try any stronger flight; And she turned aside, half fearing that fresh thoughts were fickle changes— That she must stay as he left her on that ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... fickle favor! However much thou mayst for them have done. Nations, as well as women, ever, Worship the rising, not the ...
— Faust • Goethe
... drowsy parson has read the ceremony from a dog's-eared prayer-book? It may be so in your English law—but Scotland makes Love himself the priest. A vow betwixt a fond couple, the blue heaven alone witnessing, will protect a confiding girl against the perjury of a fickle swain, as much as if a Dean had performed the rites in the loftiest cathedral in England. Nay, more; if the child of love be acknowledged by the father at the time when he is baptized—if he present the mother to strangers of respectability as his wife, the laws of Scotland will ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... to me his strange, half pagan, half Christian fatalism. He was of the South, "well toward the Boot Heel, signore," but Love, the master mariner, had driven him out of his course and brought him within fifty miles of Rome to court a fickle beauty of the hills, whose brother had come down for the wood-cutting and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... the number of the AEsir, whom some call the calumniator of the gods, the contriver of all fraud and mischief, and the disgrace of gods and men. His name is Loki or Loptur. He is the son of the giant Farbauti.....Loki is handsome and well made, but of a very fickle mood, and most evil disposition. He surpasses all beings in those arts called Cunning and Perfidy. Many a time has he exposed the gods to very great perils, and often extricated them ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... passions: they are drawn this way or that by the objects of the senses, and the "senses move after their appropriate objects"; it is not the "I," the Self, which moves. And so also with the mind. "The mind is fickle and restless, O Krishna, it seems as hard to curb as the wind," and the mind lets the senses run after objects as a horse that has broken its reins flies away with the unskilled driver. All these forces are set up; and there is one more thing to remember. These forces ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... the moon. Adj. changeable, changeful; changing &c. 140; mutable, variable, checkered, ever changing; protean, proteiform|; versatile. unstaid[obs3], inconstant; unsteady, unstable, unfixed, unsettled; fluctuating &c. v.; restless; agitated &c. 315; erratic, fickle; irresolute &c. 605; capricious &c. 608; touch and go; inconsonant, fitful, spasmodic; vibratory; vagrant, wayward; desultory; afloat; alternating; alterable, plastic, mobile; transient &c. 111; wavering. Adv. seesaw &c. (oscillation) 314; off and on. Phr. "a rolling stone ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... guards about the hut were changed, and again the women came, bearing platters of food. There was plenty of it, showing that the king, however fickle his friendship might be, did not intend to starve his captives. Tom and his friends had not seen Delby come out of the royal palace, and they concluded that he was still ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... surprised," the colonel said, "and there are many others in the same state; but whither can I send them? The Elector of Brandenburg is so fickle and treacherous that he may at any moment ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... fallen into her grandfather's keeping! A cold horror falls upon her. After all these weary years of hated servitude to be undone! It is impossible even fickle fortune should play her ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... winter of 1618 the colony was reduced to the verge of extinction through the defection of its fickle allies, the Indians. The station at Three Rivers had become to them a great place of resort; and while many hundreds of savages were assembled there a quarrel occurred at Quebec between some Indians and colonists, the particulars of which have not been very clearly transmitted. But the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His person. Such a satisfaction have they found in looking upon the triumphal entry into Jerusalem of Him who knew that it would be followed by the revolt of the fickle mob, and the desertion of His disciples, and the Cross of Calvary, and all the hideous circumstances of ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... respected (as a white gate always is) from its strong declaration of purpose. Outside of it, things may belong to the Crown, the Admiralty, Manor, or Trinity Brethren, or perhaps the sea itself—according to the latest ebb or flow of the fickle tide of Law Courts—but inside that gate everything belongs to the fine old ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Universal Parent, how he sings! As if he wished the firmament of heaven Should listen, and give back to him the voice Of his triumphant constancy and love; The proclamation that he makes, how far His darkness doth transcend our fickle light."[72] ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and even that she had preserved intact her sway over the Duke de Lorraine, in spite of the charms of the fair Beatrice. By the help of the Princess de Phalzbourg he watched every step, and disputed with her, foot to foot, possession of the fickle Charles IV., sometimes the victor, but very often the vanquished ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... That "nothing is more fickle and inconstant than the multitude" is affirmed not by Titus Livius only, but by all other historians, in whose chronicles of human actions we often find the multitude condemning some citizen to death, and afterwards lamenting him and grieving greatly for his loss, as the Romans ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... thoughts, and raise my soul to his heroic pitch? Is not this true knight-errantry, to redeem to peace and use, and to the glory of that glorious queen whom God has given to me, a generous soil and a more generous race? Trustful and tenderhearted they are—none more; and if they be fickle and passionate, will not that very softness of temper, which makes them so easily led to evil, make them as easy to be led towards good? Yes—here, away from courts, among a people who should bless ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... life. He then changes his mind again, and pronounces this fruit a very powerful remedy, which ought to be employed only in extreme cases, and with great caution, but which ought not to be absolutely excluded from the Pharmacopoeia. Would it not be the height of absurdity to call such a man fickle and inconsistent because he had repeatedly altered his judgement?' Of course it would. A man cannot go all through life wearing the same suit of clothes. For two reasons. It will not always fit, and it will wear out. And, in precisely the same way, and for ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... like a lawyer," smiled the governor. "You forget that I am neither judge nor jury. Tyrant I may have been to a fickle people that needed a firm hand to rule them, but tyrant I am ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... another, to the governor himself, who appeared determined to release him if he could do it without risk of personal popularity, and who yet, in order to avoid accusation at Rome, gave sentence according to the people's will. The fickle populace crying "crucify him," the disciples who forsook him, the rock-apostle who denied even so much as knowledge of the man, show how all the currents of life about him were stirred and full of tumult. ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... moved up one sidewalk and down another, staring hypnotically at the flash-in and flash-out electric, signs that kept the breakfast foods and ales, the safety razors, soaps, and soups incessantly in the minds of a fickle public. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... first in France, Where mankind lives in haste, and thrives by chance; A dancing nation, fickle and untrue, Have oft undone themselves, and others too; Prompt the infernal dictates to obey, And in hell's favour none ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... say! shall the land of Achilles Reluctantly cherish a dastardly slave, Who can crouch at the foot of a despot, whose will is As fickle as wind, and as rude as the wave? Shall the ashes of heroes enshrouded in glory, Be spurn'd in contempt by a barbarous horde, While their sons idly tremble like boys at a story, And shudder to gaze on the point of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 385, Saturday, August 15, 1829. • Various
... about another would-be godfather for whom you, naturally, have no earthly use. And to-day my heart is filled with remorse and my head is filled with fears lest you should think your dear godchild is ungrateful, fickle, and flighty. I want to tell you how every detail of your life—from knob-polishing and bug-swallowing to poetry-writing is dear and precious to me. How I wish I could do the same! How I live in eager expectation of your letters; how I gloat and ponder over them when they come; and how ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... Medicine had been his last fancy, and he had set to work with so much ardor that he had just qualified after an unusually short course of study, by a special remission of time from the minister. He was enthusiastic, intelligent, fickle, but obstinate, full ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... be better to rent," said Mr. Fairfield. "Suppose my fickle daughter should change her mind, and after a visit in the city decide that she prefers it ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... proof why a woman of beauty should not concentrate all her devotion on one man. You have seen him to-night and his assiduous attention to another woman. Captain Prescott, all men are fickle—with a few ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... bold, Led his array against Altoum. Fortune, The fickle jade, lured him to his defeat And death. Altoum's general devised At one fell stroke to extirpate our race. My brothers he assassinated. Me, Together with my mother and three sisters, He cast into the river, then in spate. The gentle Emperor, coming on ...
— Turandot, Princess of China - A Chinoiserie in Three Acts • Karl Gustav Vollmoeller
... landed him halfway through the ropes. There he lay while the referee tolled off the count of ten, and as the official took Billy's hand in his and raised it aloft in signal that he had won the fight the fickle crowd cheered and screamed ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Evangelical standpoints, he stood outside of all the movements and missions and cults and crusades of the day, uncaring and uninterested. Yet in a mystical-practical way of his own, which had served him unscathed and unshaken through the fickle years of boyhood, he was intensely and intensively religious. His family were naturally, though unobtrusively, distressed about it. "I am so afraid it may affect his bridge," ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... master. The public—they who live in the present, not the past. They who swear by triumph, achievement; not effort. They who have no memory for the deeds that have been done unless they vouch for future conquests. The public—fickle as woman, weak as infancy, gullible as credulity, mighty as fate. Yes, Garrison knew it, and deep down in his heart, though he showed it not, he gloried in the welcome accorded him. He had not ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... worthily, his affections being easily won; and there is something touching, soothing, and delightful in his inherent respect for gentleman and lady. His aptitude for domestic service; his love for and his power of amusing children and winning their fickle heart, their attachment to him being one of the most delightful traits of Southern life; his impressible, religious and devout nature, mark him as a wonderful element of variety in the domestic texture of our life such as it shall be ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of the ever-fickle mob, hailing him as its deliverer, Louis XII rode triumphantly into Milan on October 6, attended by a little host of princes, including the Prince of Savoy, the Dukes of Montferrat and Ferrara, and the Marquis of Mantua. But ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... fine folds of muslin, or like sheets of dissolving sugar, and then the hot air of the earth would dissipate it, and the showers would be absorbed in the upper regions. The heat was sometimes intense, but at intervals a refreshing wind would blow, the air being as fickle as the rain; and now and then we would see a slender column of dust, a thousand or two feet high, marching across the desert, apparently not more than two feet in diameter, and wavering like the threads of moisture that tried in vain to reach the ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... done, Washington and the Colonel sallied forth, and as they walked along Washington learned what he was to be. He was to be a clerk in a real estate office. Instantly the fickle youth's dreams forsook the magic eye-water and flew back to the Tennessee Land. And the gorgeous possibilities of that great domain straightway began to occupy his imagination to such a degree that he could scarcely manage to keep even enough of his attention upon the Colonel's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Chandos for killing Mr. Compton in a duel was, just at this moment, exciting the fickle attention of the town, which had probably said its say on the subject of Cromwell's coup d'etat, and was only too ready for another subject of conversation. The trial is not reported among the State Trials, but our observant friend ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... had at first accused the barber of murdering his brother cried out that it was sorcery, and that this accursed barber must be in fact a foul magician, since he could not only kill good Moslims, but shave misshapen apes. On this the fickle crowd were moved against the barber, and would have fallen upon him and done him an injury had I ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... erratic that there was never any knowing when the ferry-boat would be able to start. But that was what people had to put up with forty years ago. So the Great Western Railway Company, in 1871, decided to go under the fickle waters, as they found it so troublesome to go over them. A study of the bottom of the river made it clear that the tunnel they intended to make would have to slope downwards considerably from both ends, running level for a short distance only under ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... appeals to the good sense of the public, for a decision, whether, with such objections and difficulties weighing upon his mind, as he has now exposed, his conduct in that respect can reasonably be attributed to the unmanly influence of caprice and fickle-ness, (as has been circulated by some who had an interest in making it believed;) or to the just influence of motives deserving a ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... its many complexions, East and West, had developed in Paul Harley a sort of sixth sense. It was an evasive, fickle thing, but was nevertheless the attribute which had made him an investigator of genius. Often enough it failed him entirely. It had failed him to-night—or else no one had followed him from ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... however started, when they began to build their dwelling-house; and some wicked people endeavoured to raise suspicions in the minds of their countrymen, as to the intentions of the Missionaries. The latter were, for some time after, in danger of their lives, from the fickle disposition of their new friends; but the Lord preserved them. Their upright intentions were at length acknowledged, and ever after all due respect and confidence shown to them by ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel |
