"Loth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his house and asked his wife to lend him her husband's scythe, as he had lost his own. The farmer's wife looked for one, but could only find the one upon which her husband set such store. This, however, a little loth, she lent to the man, begging him at the same time never to temper it in the fire; for that, she said, her good man never did. So the neighbor promised, and taking it with him, bound it to a handle and began to work with it. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... face, it faded out; the Pattern faded with it; Daddy vanished too. On the little azure winds of dawn they flashed away. Jimbo, Monkey, and certain of the Sprites alone held on, but the tree-tops to which they clung were growing more and more slippery every minute. Mother, loth to return, balanced bravely on the waving spires of a larch. Her sleep that night had been so deep and splendid, she struggled to prolong it. She hated waking ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... were alone here," said Belle, "before I came, and, I suppose, found it agreeable, or you would not have stayed in it." "Yes," said I, "that was before I knew you; but having lived with you here, I should be very loth to live here without you." "Indeed," said Belle, "I did not know that I was of so much consequence to you. Well, the day is wearing away—I must go and harness Traveller to the cart." "I will do that," said I, "or anything else you may wish me. Go and prepare yourself; I will see after Traveller ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... it is difficult to obtain from them anything reliable; while the fishermen above tidewater are a bad set of confirmed poachers, whose only occupation is hunting and fishing both in and out of season. They are always jealous and loth to let us know how good a thing they make of it, for fear of us and fear of ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... fround, Those brattish elues, that dally on the ground? They scorne my kingdome, and neglect my minde, Contemne me as inconstant as the winde. Then shoot (quoth she) and strike them so in loue, As nought but death, their loue-dart may remoue. At this he lookt, the boy was loth to shoot, Yet strucke them both so neere the hearts sweet root, As that he made them both at once to cry (Quoth he) I loue, for loue (quoth she) I die. Of this both Venus, and her blind boy bosted, And thence to ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... instance which would convey some notion of the Indian's aptness in this line, and yet not involve myself, but I cannot. I would say, in a general way, that the Indian is a plausible being, and one needs to be wary with him, and not too loth to suspect him of meditating some dire practical joke, which shall issue in the utter confusion and discomfiture of its victim, whilst its author shall appropriate the main comfort and jubilation. Though the Indian, perhaps, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... properly," said Lars Peter, relaxing his grip a little. "You're my youngest brother, and I'm loth to harm you; but I'll not be knocked down like a pig ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Arthur, who was loth to part with his pupil. "You surely do not dine till three, and I have already ordered lunch. Here it comes," and he pointed to the door where Phillis stood, bearing a huge silver salver, on which were wine and cake and ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... Horace will be very willing. I should be loth to have him drawn into intimacy with Boyd or Foster, but as he likes neither their conduct nor their principles, I have little ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... repose, and rest my wearied shanks; Here, on the grass, where once I could recline, Like a huge mushroom springs this mansion fine. Astounding work! but yesterday 'twas building; And now what armour, carving, painting, gilding! Vexed as I am, yet loth to be uncivil, I only wish the owner at ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... brief respite accorded, the young man dashed towards the hedge and vanished in the undergrowth. The Germans fired a few shots but there was no organised attempt to follow him, probably because their own position was not too secure. He was loth to leave the women to face the music, but they insisted that it was pour la patrie and that they were quite capable of taking care of themselves. Later he again visited the village and the women told ...
— The White Road to Verdun • Kathleen Burke
... due steps taken for the Extinction of Witches; but they would fain have them to be sure ones; nor is it from any thing, but the real and hearty goodness of such Men, that they are loth to surmise ill of other Men, till there be the fullest Evidence for the surmises. As for the Honourable Judges that have been hitherto in the Commission, they are above my Consideration: wherefore I will only say thus much of them, That such of them as I have the Honour ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... Friday, 1864. He was too helpless to be moved afterwards; yet would still creep, now and then, from his bed to the window, looking down upon the ever-beautiful world, which he knew he was leaving now, and which he was not loth to leave, though he loved it ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... detailed as skirmishers. Annie, although advised to remain in the rear accompanied them, taking the lead; meeting her colonel however, he told her to go back, as the enemy was near, and he was every moment expecting an attack. Very loth to fall back, she turned and rode along the front of a line of shallow trenches filled with our men; she called to them, "Boys, do your duty and whip the rebels." The men partially rose and cheered her, shouting "Hurrah for Annie," "Bully for you." This ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... himself as a drummer, and marched with the Blues to suppress the rebel Whites in La Vendee. One day he advanced too close to the enemy's post, intrepidly beating the charge. He was surrounded, but the peasant soldiers were loth to strike, 'Cry Long live the King!' they shouted, 'or else death!' 'Long live the Republic!' was the poor little hero's answer, as a ball pierced his heart. Robespierre described the incident to the Convention, and amid prodigious enthusiasm ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... him say we'd appear in that last scene?" disputed the eager Billy, loth to give up his ambitious plan to have a leading place in the exposition showing how this famous group of motion-picture players did their ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... shelters under the boy's black Crisp hair, frank eyes, and honest English skin. Two minutes only! Conscious of a name, The new man plants his weapon with profound Long-practised skill that no mere trick may scare. Not loth, the rested lad resumes the game: The flung ball takes one maddening, tortuous bound, And the ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Lingering and wandering on as loth to die, Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality. 970 WORDSWORTH: Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... the first place the cost of the repairs of the north transept, and afterwards to make good any deficiency in the funds required for the restoration of the rest of the fabric. Of course, I am very loth to question any action taken by a member of the Upper House, but at the same time I am compelled to characterise the proceeding as most irregular. That such a communication should be made to a mere clerk of the works, instead of to the Rector and ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... loggia on the Grand Canal after dinner, the moonlight making things almost light as day, Dmitry begged admittance from the doorway of the great salon. The lady turned imperiously, and flashed upon him. How dared he interrupt their happy hour with things of earth? Then she saw he was loth to speak before Paul, and that his face ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... an act of great goodness, when, at the price of her teapot, she obtained that Louisa should be married by the registrar to Sam Jones, and their passage paid, on condition of their carrying away Michael with them. The man was nothing loth, having really a certain preference for Louisa, and likewise a grudge against Lord Northmoor for having spoilt that game with Miss Morton, which might have brought the ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... under Maria Theresa, and offering an amnesty to all who should return to their duty before the 1st of November. The mediating powers notified to the Belgian states the approval of these terms, but that body, who had exercised sovereign authority ever since the revolt, were loth to relinquish it; and under these circumstances, Austrian troops entered their territory. Various engagements took place, but resistance was vain: the arms of the emperor were uniformly successful, and the people generally acknowledged ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... drew to a close, and, though no one asked the time yet all felt that the moment of departure was approaching; whether they were willing to go was doubtful, but at they were loth to ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... brought the monke to the lodge-dore, Whether he were loth or lefe, For to speke with Robyn ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... strong that he delayed her marriage until the gallants began to complain, and the girl herself became uneasy, lest her charms should expand to a maturity that might hurt her matrimonial chances. As she had no preference, however, she agreed that her father might name the happy man. He, loth to incur the enmity of any at his court, resolved to offer her as a prize, and the fairest contest seemed in his mind to be a run to Kaula and back, each contestant to be allowed to use sail and carry four oarsmen, and the winner of ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... that Braintop should carry a pocket-mirror if he pleased, laughed from sympathy; until Braintop, reduced to the verge of forbearance, stood up and remarked that, to perform the mission entrusted to him, he must depart immediately. Mr. Pole was loth to let him go, but finally commending him to a good supper, he sighed, and declared himself ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the woolly flocks retreat, And mixed with bellowing herds confus'dly bleat; Their trembling lords the common shade partake, And cries of infants sound in every brake: The listening soldier fixed in sorrow stands, Loth to obey his leader's just commands; The leader grieves, by generous pity swayed, To see his just commands so well obeyed. But now the trumpet, terrible from far, In shriller clangors animates the war, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... the rest of the day dawdling helplessly about her; wherever she went he was near, as near as possible, but of no deliberate volition of his own. Something seemed to tie him to her, and Milla was nothing loth. He seldom looked at her directly, or for longer than an instant, and more rarely still did he speak to her except as a reply. What few remarks he ventured upon his own initiative nearly all concerned ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... counselled Oliver Wendell Holmes. "You can't expect to do anything great with Macbeth, if you first come on flourishing Paul Pry's umbrella." Mark Twain has had to pay in full the penalty of comic greatness. The world is loth to accept a popular character at any rating other than its own. Whosoever sets himself the task of amusing the world must realize the almost insuperable difficulty of inducing the world to regard him as ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... gazed pensively from his bedroom window. He was reviewing his day. He had almost forgotten the stormy and decidedly unpleasant scene with his father. Mr. Brown's rhetoric had been rather lost on William, because its pearls of sarcasm had been so far above his head. And William had not been really loth to retire at once to bed. After all, it had ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... scarcely be believed that, of this hundred and fifty Continentals, but three men consented to join the ranks of their liberator. It may be that they were somewhat loth to be led, even though it were to victory, by the man whose ludicrous equipments and followers, but a few weeks before, had only provoked their merriment. The reason given for their refusal, however, was not deficient ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... length Judy, who looked on him as a "raal janius," begged him to "sing the gintlemens the song he made when he first came to the counthry." Of course we ardently seconded the motion, and nothing loth, the old man, throwing himself back on his stool, and stretching out his long neck, poured forth the following ditty, with which I shall conclude my hasty ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... knew vaguely that she was glad of it in a more personal than impersonal way. When she shook hands with the cheerful non-com. at the door of the hospital, she gave him a piece of gold which he was loth to accept till she said: "But take it as a souvenir of Colonel Byng's little ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Loth as I am to give you pain, I must proceed," Field said. "Was the gentleman you speak of known as a Mr. Carl Grey, ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... look as if loth to trust his ears, walked into his room, and shut the door. The thrill of horror came over her that this was the first quarrel. She had been saucy when he was serious, and had offended him. She sprang to the door, knocked and called, and was in agony ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Although loth to break off his sport, yet inwardly acknowledging the justness of the hunter's philosophy, Claud reluctantly drew in and wound up his line, hauled in his anchor, and, handling his oar, shot out abreast of the other, who had already got under way, into the heaving waters of the now agitated lake. ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... murmuring makes of our stormy life a calm holy day. We fill all our days with the talk of the people who are loth to sacrifice and of those who dare to sacrifice. Disgust and admiration are two baths in which our hearts bathe from sunrise to sunset. By nothing is the disgust towards a man more excited than by hearing: "He is incapable of sacrifice." When ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... scope of Matthew 15:8, 9 doth testify. And verily, may I but speak my own experience, and from that tell you the difficulty of praying to God as I ought, it is enough to make your poor, blind, carnal men to entertain strange thoughts of me. For, as for my heart, when I go to pray, I find it so loth to go to God, and when it is with him, so loth to stay with him, that many times I am forced in my prayers, first to beg of God that he would take mine heart, and set it on himself in Christ, and when it is there, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... death enough in the world, Master," he asked, "that the living should wish to proclaim it in this fashion, rolling it on their tongues like a morsel they are loth to swallow, because it tastes so good? Oh! what a waste is here. All these have had their day and yet they need houses and pyramids and painted chambers in which to sleep, whereas if they believed the faith they practised, they would have been content to give their bones to ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Gerty loved? Is Gerty loth? Or, if she 's either, is she both? She 's fancy free, but sweeter far Than many plighted maidens are: Will Gerty smile us all away, And still be Gerty? Who ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more; So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells, Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Lingering—and wandering on as loth to die; Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... long canoe voyage had come to an end, and as the Indians said that five days' journey would be needed to bring them to their homes, and the two white men had heavy packs which they were loth to carry so long a distance, they {211} decided to remain where they were and let their red friends either come or send back for them. Then, being but two men, surrounded by wild tribes, they built themselves a little triangular log fort by the ...
— French Pathfinders in North America • William Henry Johnson
... with the dew of the birth of the day: Eyes that had looked not on time, and ears that had heard not of death; Lips that had learnt not the rhyme of change and passionate breath, The rhythmic anguish of growth, and the motion of mutable things, Of love that longs and is loth, and plume-plucked hope without wings, Passions and pains without number, and life that runs and is lame, From slumber again to slumber, the same race set for the same, Where the runners outwear each other, but running with lampless hands No man takes light from ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... turned full upon him with tenderest entreaty. He would be loth to reward any such devotion with ingratitude, and it would be that. Pani could not ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... unseen, if I perish! Spare me the shame of thine eyes, when merciless fangs must tear me Piecemeal! Enough to endure by myself in the light of the sunshine Guiltless, the death of a kid!' But the boy still lingered around her, Loth, like a boy, to forego her, and waken the cliffs with his laughter. 'Yon is the foe, then? A beast of the sea? I had deemed him immortal. Titan, or Proteus' self, or Nereus, foeman of sailors: Yet would I fight with them all, but Poseidon, shaker ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... rebelled," said Dun, calmly; "they come to remonstrate with your Highness first; for, as Christians, they are loth to draw the sword. They have no arms with them, to the end that no one may dare to accuse ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... not a crown neither, 'twas one of these coronets;— and, as I told you, he put it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again: but, to my thinking, he was very loth to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by: and still as he refused it, the rabblement shouted, and clapped their chopped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps, and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... in the stove at Barbara's in the chilly autumn days, when people who could not afford it so well were loth ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... the manifold benefits and commodities and pleasures heretofore vnknowen, by Gods especiall blessing not onely reueiled vnto vs, but also as it were infused into our bosomes, who though hitherto like dormice haue slumbred in ignorance thereof, being like the cats that are loth for their prey to wet their feet: yet if now therefore at the last we would awake, and with willing mindes (setting friuolous imaginations aside) become industrious instruments to our selues, questionlesse we should not only hereby set ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... motive, essentially unequal to the work it is asked to do. Thus, though as I observed just now, a man may often prefer to sit on a table and give up the arm-chair to a friend, there are other times when he will be very loth to do so. He will do so when the pleasure of looking at comfort is greater than the pleasure of feeling it. And in certain states of mind and body this is very often the case. But let him be sleepy and really in need of rest, the selfish impulse will at once eclipse ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... America, but it was not thought worth while to take any further steps towards arresting him. Mr Grey himself was decidedly opposed to any such attempt, declaring his opinion that his own evidence would be insufficient to obtain a conviction. The big men in Scotland Yard were loth to let the matter drop. Their mouths watered after the job, and they had very numerous and very confidential interviews with John Grey. But it was decided that nothing should be done. "Pity!" said one enterprising superintendent, in answer to the condolings of a brother superintendent. "Pity's no ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... treatment of the Roman Catholic princes of the empire, whom France took under her protection, and against whom Gustavus claimed the right of retaliation, and after some less important differences with regard to the title of majesty, which the pride of France was loth to concede to the King of Sweden, Richelieu yielded the second, and Gustavus Adolphus the first point, and the treaty was signed at Beerwald in Neumark. The contracting parties mutually covenanted to defend each other with a ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... two pupils, to inform them of my change of address—from garret to cellar. And I must ask help from my prosperous brother. He gives it me unreluctantly, I know, but I am always loth to apply to him. May I use your ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... the narrowest thicket strips, and once to feel our way cautiously along a sunken ledge under a sheer rock cliff. That was Billy's idea. We came to the sheer rock cliff after a pretty hard scramble, and we were most loth to do the necessary climbing. Billy suggested that we might be able to wade. As the pool below the cliff was black water and of indeterminate depth, we scouted the idea. Billy, however, poked around with a stick, and, as I have said, discovered ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... able, moderate, and honest men, but without any ascendant genius, except Talleyrand; who selected his colleagues, and retained for himself the portfolio of foreign affairs and the presidency of the Council, giving to Fouche the management of internal affairs. Loth was the king to accept the services of either,—the one a regicide, and the other a traitor. The whole royal family set up a howl of indignation at the appointment of Fouche; but it was deemed necessary to secure his services in order to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... the wint'ry tempest roar'd, He sped to Hero nothing loth, And thus of old thy current pour'd, Fair Venus! how ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Winnie was nothing loth to follow, for she had reached a romantic period of life, and it seemed to her that to be led through mysterious caves and dark galleries in the very heart of a still active volcano by her own father—the hermit of Rakata—was the ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... think it wrong to remain any longer in an essentially Protestant atmosphere. But to return to Thornby Place alone was impossible, and she begged for Kitty. The parson was loth to part with his daughter, but he felt there was much suffering beneath the calm exterior that Mrs Norton preserved. He could refuse her nothing, and ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... fall asleep again, and to-morrow will be quite well. But what a near escape!" And he lingered with Merat, feeling it were better she should know everything, yet loth to tell her that he had known all the while that Ulick was trying to persuade Evelyn to go away with him. But Merat must know that Ulick had been ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... must no longer presume to order your actions. You have considered my wishes so conscientiously, have kept your covenant so absolutely, that what promised to be a disagreeable responsibility has become a pleasure which I find myself loth to discontinue. All power leads to tyranny. Man cannot be trusted with it. Its exercise becomes a consuming passion, and he abuses it. The story is the same, whether nations or individuals be considered. I myself, you see, am a case in point. ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... finish with, my subject, in which, to express myself in the manner of the gauchos, I have passed over many matters, like good grass and fragrant herbs the galloping horse sniffs at but cannot stay to taste; and especially loth to conclude with this last incident, which has in it an element of gloom. I would rather first go back for a few moments to my original theme—the pleasures of riding, for the sake of mentioning a species of pleasure my English reader has probably never tasted or even ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... lady was fair as any the eye might scan Through a summer day of roving—a type at whose lip Despite her maturing seasons, no meet man Would be loth to sip. ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... found your voice, have you? What do I mean? Do you mean to say you do not guess even now? Upon my word, I am loth to kill so fair a fool." He regarded me for a moment with pitying contempt, then stretched out his hand and took up ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... was setting. Slowly they went back together through the paths of the tangled garden, which had doubtless seen many dramas, and the courses changed of many lives: overgrown and outworn now, yet love was loth to leave it. Honora paused on the lawn before the house, and looked back at ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... eight o'clock I awoke. The storm had long since passed away, and the morning was bright and shining; my couch was so soft and luxurious that I felt loth to quit it, so I lay some time, my eyes wandering about the magnificent room to which fortune had conducted me in so singular a manner; at last I heaved a sigh; I was thinking of my own homeless condition, and imagining where I should ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... I will," said the woman warmly, opening the door wide, and setting a chair for the boy, who seemed nothing loth to enter. ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... the birds, which still hovered about their island haunts, seemed to have no difficulty in procuring their food. Fortunately, the powder and shot, which they had carefully husbanded, still held out, and she had a sufficient supply to carry her through the winter. She was loth to destroy the only living creatures left upon the island. The hares, which leaped across her path, she had learned to love, and the warmly-clad northern birds had become very dear companions to her in her loneliness. But the terrible necessity that stared her in the face knew naught of ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... him and invited him to proceed with the game. That there might be no mistaking his desire, Gammire "sat up" and prayed; nor did he find Herbert anything loth. Out of nine chances Gammire "muffed" the ball only twice, both times excusably, and Florence once more flung her arms about the ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... banqueting-place in the sky! 15 Joyous as Morning, Thou art laughing and scorning; Thou hast a nest, for thy love and thy rest: And, though little troubled with sloth, Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth 20 To be such a Traveller as I. Happy, happy Liver! With a soul as strong as a mountain River, Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, Joy and jollity be with us both! Hearing thee, or else some other, As merry a Brother, I on the ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... And how he easily may get between Those Quarters, where he may surprize a Fort, In which an Emperor may find such Sport, That with a mighty Gust of Love's Alarms, He'd lie dissolving in my circling Arms; But 'tis my Fate to have to do with Fools, Who're very loth and shy to use their Tools, To ease a poor, and fond distressed Maid, Of that same Load, of which I'm not afrad To lose with any Man, tho' I should die, For any Tooth (good Barber) is ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... and reflections, so with portraits; they are often believed to contain the soul of the person portrayed. People who hold this belief are naturally loth to have their likenesses taken; for if the portrait is the soul, or at least a vital part of the person portrayed, whoever possesses the portrait will be able to exercise a fatal influence over the original of it. Thus the Esquimaux of Bering Strait ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Krishna, loth is archer Arjun to pursue this hateful strife, Trick against the sinless Bhishma, fraud upon ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... will harm me, love? Nay, I have frightened thee into foreboding. Banish it, or I shall be still more loth to ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... decay, the gardens which would be neglected, the woods which would be cut down, and all the cattle-houses, courts, stables, sheds, machinery, horses, cows which had been accumulated with such effort, although not by him. At first it seemed to him easy to abandon all that, but now he was loth to part with it, as well as the land and one-half of the income which would be so useful now. And immediately serviceable arguments come to his aid, by which it appeared that it was not wise to give the land to the peasants and ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... borne of most noble parents, and ruling ouer many people, to haue accepted peace by waie of ioining with you in league. My present estate as it is to me reprochfull, so to you it is honorable. I had at commandement, horsses, men, armor, and great riches; what maruell is it if I were loth to forgo the same? For if you shall looke to gouerne all men, it must needs follow that all men must be your slaues. If I had at the first yeelded my selfe, neither my power nor your glorie had beene set foorth to the world, & vpon mine execution I should ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... abysmal days I've fought with his digestion, Being hostile to his processes and loth to pulpify, It is rapidly becoming a most complicated question How much of me is crocodile, how much of him ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... not loth to tell his story, and just as he was settling himself comfortably in a ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... means loth to assume it. They got on excellently together, and their almost daily rides became a source of keen pleasure to her. Winter was fast merging into spring, and the magic of the coming season was working in her blood. There were times when a sense of spontaneous happiness would ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... is, which may be called agnostic. It springs from the criticism of the positions just now indicated, and being guided by a powerful consciousness of the truth, rejects them all, because it finds them too evidently false, and because it is too loth to admit that art is a simple fact of pleasure or pain, an exercise of virtue, or a fragmentary sketch of science and philosophy. And while rejecting them, it discovers, at the same time, that art is not now this and now that of those things, or of other things, indefinitely, ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... quit this despondence, sweet Osvalde! be gay! See open before thee the gates of delight! Where the Hours are now lingering on tiptoe, away! They view thee with smiles, and are loth to take flight. ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... said at last, and he let her go, standing by helplessly while she went through the movements of readjustment instinctive to women. Even in these he read the existence of the reservation he was loth ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Mrs. Slater: he knows nought about it yet; but when he gets them he'll be as loth to leave the babbies at home on a Whitsuntide as any on us. We shall live to see him in Dunham Park yet, wi' twins in his arms, and another pair on 'em clutching at daddy's coat-tails, let alone ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... was by special providence now come to him, and give him money, to be employed by religious persons for the ransom of so many as were captives at Constantinople. Cornutus, who was a good sort of a man, yet loth to part with his money, told Brabantius that he would advise upon it; and desired he would meet him in the same place the next day. In the mean time, he began to suspect there might be some fraud in the place, as it was shady, dark, and fit for echoes or other delusions. The next day, therefore, ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... apprehensiveness that the presents might be looted by the more unscrupulous of the guests, for he pointed out to me a sharp-eyed, shy gentleman in a corner, who, he informed me, was a disguised police-officer. This, at first, I was loth to believe, but was assured that it ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... on the bright river when that brig entered the harbor on the return of her last voyage, to receive how different a welcome! But pestilence raged abroad in the country now, and the people of the port, who had so far escaped the evil, were loth to let it enter among them at last, and had not yet recovered from the recoil of their first shock and shiver at thought of it in their waters—waters than which none could have fostered it more kindly, full as they were in their shallow breadth of rotting weeds and the slime of sewers. Perhaps ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... suffer that the chyld shuld thynke he hadde gotten the better, when he is worse in deede. Finally by enterchaungyng, prayse and disprayse, he shall noryshe in them, as Hesiodus sayth, astryfe who shall do best. Perchaunce one of a sadde wyt wyl be loth so to play the child among chyldren. And yet the same is not greued, neyther yet ashamed to spende a greate parte of the day in playing wyth little puppies and marmesettes, or to babble wyth a pie or popiniay, or to play the foole wyth a foole. ...
— The Education of Children • Desiderius Erasmus
... 'Tis not my nature, no, nor, as they tell, My father's, to work aught by craft and guile. I'll undertake to bring him in by force, Not by deceit. For, sure, with his one foot, He cannot be a match for all our crew Being sent, my lord, to serve thee, I am loth To seem rebellious. But I rather choose To offend with honour, than ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... bade farewell for ever to his native land with reluctance. There is something touching in the familiar image which he uses to describe his own condition: "He was like a dog of a faithful nature, who, though beaten and ill-treated by his master and household, is loth to quit the walls of his dwelling." He found at Bearn, in the court of the sister of Henry IV. of France, a resting-place from hardship, but not a safe asylum from persecution. During his brief residence there, three separate attempts to assassinate ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... nature, and I am certain, were we to call in all the faculty for twenty miles round, Mr. Warrington could get no better treatment. So, leaving the young gentleman to the care of me and my daughters, the Baroness and her ladyship took their leave of us, the latter very loth to go. When he is well enough, my Colonel will ride with him as far as Westerham, but on his own horses, where an old army-comrade of Mr. Lambert's resides. And, as this letter will not take the post for Falmouth until, by God's blessing, your son is well ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... baptized George Fitzroy, and subsequently created Duke of Northumberland. By this time, the plague having subsided in the capital, and all danger of infection passed away, his majesty was anxious to reach London, yet loth to leave his mistress, whom he visited every morning, and to whom he exhibited the uttermost tenderness. And his tardiness to return becoming displeasing to the citizens, and they being aware of its cause, it was whispered in taverns and cried in the streets, "The king cannot go away till my Lady ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... them, strictly as brothers and sisters. When, for example, the portress opened the door of the Schweister-house to us, and found that we were foreigners, she stated that Sister Handman could speak French, and to Sister Handman's apartment we were forthwith conducted, nothing loth to follow. We found it furnished with great taste, and the lady herself, well-bred and intelligent; yet the humblest person in the house called her only schweister, and she did not appear to desire ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... sacrificed to the Gods twenty chieftains of the Aliens whom they had taken, and therewithal a maiden of their own kindred, the daughter of their war-duke, that she might lead that mighty company to the House of the Gods; and thereto was she nothing loth, but went right willingly. ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... elders, as our young subjects grow up, naturally demanding liberty and citizen's rights, than for us gracefully to abdicate our sovereign pretensions and claims of absolute control. There's many a family chief who governs wisely and gently, who is loth to give the power up when he should. Ah, be sure, it is not youth alone that has need to learn humility! By their very virtues, and the purity of their lives, many good parents create flatterers for themselves, and so live in the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... were obliged to keep the road, or else they must commit spoil, and do the country a great deal of damage in breaking down fences and gates to go over enclosed fields, which they were loth to do ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... into a wooden gallery reaching from one side of the house to the other, at one end of which was a table, where she had been writing when we arrived. We often took leave, but were loth to depart. Dumont luckily asked if she could direct us to a fine old chateau in the neighbourhood, which we had been told was particularly well worth seeing—Viernon. "It is my brother's," she said, and she would go with us and show it. The carriage was sent round ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... a thousand lives away, When torment is grown weary of its prey, When I have rav'd ten thousand years in fire, Ten thousand thousand, let me then expire." Deep anguish! but too late; the hopeless soul, Bound to the bottom of the burning pool, Though loth, and ever loud blaspheming, owns He's justly doom'd to pour eternal groans; Enclos'd with horrors, and transfix'd with pain, Rolling in vengeance, struggling with his chain: To talk to fiery tempests; ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... "skrimage." Before he entered upon the subject, it was suggested that Captain Dubois, who had the little whisky there was in the party, should give him a taste to loosen his tongue. The Corporal, nothing loth, took the flask, and, raising it to his mouth, emptied it, to the utter dismay of the Captain and his friends. The dhrap had the effect desired. The Corporal described, with great particularity, his manner of going into action, dwelt with much emphasis on the hand-to-hand ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... me about you: he spoke the truth So far, at least: but I have still a home, My mother will be glad to see me back— Ay, more than glad: she was loth to let me go; Though, trusting Jim, as she trusted everyone, She said but little: and she'll welcome you, If only for your baby's sake. She's just A child, with children. Unless you are too proud ... Nay! But I see you'll come. We'll live and work, And tend the bairn, ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... closing day It is beheld in charms surpassing sweet, Just as the sun has done his bidden course, And goes to slumber in the favored west, Yet lingers long to take a parting look Upon the land which he shall leave behind, As seeming loth to wander from the scene, But, called of duty, moves at length away, And draws his train behind the distant hills, Till all is lost to the admiring gaze, Which feasted on the beauties to the last. For darkness ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... funeral, a letter was brought to White's Cottage. Julia herself took it in, and when she saw that it was from Holland she asked the postman to wait a minute as she would be glad if he would post a letter for her. He sat down, nothing loth; the cottage was the last place on his round and he never minded a rest there. He waited while Julia went up-stairs with her letter. She opened it before she got to her room and barely read the contents; there was enclosed a cheque for thirty ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... feels for food. Every one knows how strong this feeling can be, and it is from this that loathe and loathsome took the strong meaning they now have. Curiously enough, the adjective loath or loth, from the same word, has kept the old mild meaning. When we say we are "loth" to do a thing, we do not mean that we hate doing it, but merely that we feel rather unwilling to do it. In Old English, too, the word filth and its derivative foul were not quite such strong ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... evening of July loth, in broad daylight, we push out from Fort Simpson, with the whole population, white, red, and parti-coloured, on the banks to bid us good-bye. We have seen present-day Simpson and opened for a little way the volume of the past. We try to imagine what it is like in winter-time, and a ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... there is mystery, it is generally supposed that there must also be evil: I know not how this may be, but in him there certainly was the one, though I could not ascertain the extent of the other—and felt loth, as far as regarded himself, to believe in its existence. My advances were received with sufficient coldness; but I was young, and not easily discouraged, and at length succeeded in obtaining, to a certain degree, that common-place intercourse and moderate confidence ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... time; and he was a little jealous of Sir Condy, who talked of setting it to a stranger, who was just come into the country—Captain Moneygawl was the man. He was son and heir to the Moneygawls of Mount Juliet's town, who had a great estate in the next county to ours; and my master was loth to disoblige the young gentleman, whose heart was set upon the lodge; so he wrote him back, that the lodge was at his service, and if he would honour him with his company at Castle Rackrent, they could ride over together some morning, and look at ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... connyng lyghly to depart From Vertu his feld and they seyng this By comyn assent hyred them a carte And made hem be caryed toward Vyce Iwys. Fro thens forth to serue hy{m} this wold not mys For loth they were to be maysterles In stede of the better the ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous
... that Sancho was chaffering with the shepherds for some curds, when Don Quixote called to him to bring his helmet; and finding that his master was in haste, he did not know what to do with them, nor what to bring them in; yet loth to lose his purchase (for he had already paid for them), he bethought himself at last of clapping them into the helmet, where having them safe, he went to know his master's pleasure. As soon as he came up to him, "Give me that helmet, friend," said the knight, "for if I understand anything ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... is better, O day, that you go to your rest, For you go like a guest who was loth to remain! Swing open, ye gates of the east and the west, And let out the wild shadows—the night and ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... I am always loth to write to you about business, and have done so only when I expected you to help me, which unfortunately was the case often enough. This time, however, I want to give you a short synopsis of the state ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... repast the yellow man asked Owain the object of his journey. And Owain made it known to him, and said, "I am in quest of the knight who guards the fountain." Upon this the yellow man smiled, and said that he was as loth to point out that adventure to him as he had been to Kynon. However, he described the whole to Owain, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... had been removed, and then the children went to school. Violet offered to stay at home and help to arrange the house, but Debby declared herself equal to the clearing up, and was not complimentary in her remarks as to her skill and ability in such matters, so Letty, nothing loth, went away with the rest. It was an uncomfortable day. Mr Inglis had taken more cold, at least his cough was worse, and he stayed up-stairs in his study, and David was glad when the time came that he could stay there too. However, there came order out of the ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... song, Defago, if you're not too tired," he asked; "one of those old voyageur songs you sang the other night." He handed his tobacco pouch to the guide and then filled his own pipe, while the Canadian, nothing loth, sent his light voice across the lake in one of those plaintive, almost melancholy chanties with which lumbermen and trappers lessen the burden of their labor. There was an appealing and romantic flavor about it, something ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... his boilers whatever food he had prepared, into a wooden vessel, called a kid, resembling in size and appearance a peck measure. The kid with its contents was deposited on the spot selected; a bag or box, containing ship's biscuits was then produced, dinner was ready, and all hands, nothing loth, gathered around ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... to the high school, and then to college. The master was loth to part from his favourite pupil; but David Graham was going. It would be well, the master said, for Davie to get through the first year of the temptations while his brother John was there "to keep an eye on him;" and Davie's ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... ground. It all seems piled upon these grand old trees. There! see that tuft of it falling and now spreading into a cloud of spangles in the sun-light which streams down by those old pines. Hark! the roar of waters! The sound seems to find new echoes in these snow-laden boughs, and lingers as if loth to depart.' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... sigh'd, shook hands, or so. There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell, When once true lovers take their last farewell. What! shall we two our endless leaves take here Without a sad look or a solemn tear? He knows not love that hath not this truth proved, Love is most loth to leave the thing beloved. Pay we our vows and go; yet when we part, Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none To warm my breast when thou, my pulse, art gone. No, here I'll last, and walk (a harmless shade) About this urn wherein ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... which we should not have already known, if we had merely taken Casanova at his word. But it is not always easy to take people at their own word, when they are writing about themselves; and the world has been very loth to believe in Casanova as he represents himself. It has been specially loth to believe that he is telling the truth when he tells us about his adventures with women. But the letters contained among ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow—I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... we would expect any edification from them, ought to be dieted and kept low! to be meek and humble, quiet, and stand in need of a pot of milk from their next neighbour! and always be very loth to ask for their very right, for fear of making any disturbance in the parish, or seeming to understand or have any respect for this vile ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... partly in the same region and with the same people. The Moschians, who were still loth to pay tribute, were again attacked and reduced. Commagene was completely overrun, and the territory was attached to the Assyrian empire. The neighboring tribes were assailed in their fastnesses, their cities burnt, and their territories ravaged. At ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... I am sorry to part company along with you; a considerable long journey like our'n, is like sitting up late with the gals, a body knows it's getting on pretty well towards mornin', and yet feels loth to go to bed, for it's just the time folks grow sociable. I got a scheme in my head," said he, "that I think will answer both on us; I got debts due to me in all them 'ere places for clocks sold by the ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... witchcraft at the Sussex and Essex assizes. The last persons put to death for witchcraft in England were, some say, in 1664, while others assert the last victims suffered in 1682. The latest instance of a witch being executed in Scotland was in 1722, when the supposed offender was burned at Loth, or Dornoch, Sutherlandshire, by order of the sheriff of that county. In more recent times than several of the dates to which we have referred, discoveries, which might have been easily understood, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... gathered according to my skill, and conferred the greatest part with Maister Wolfe in his life time, to his liking, who procured me so manie helpes to the furtherance thereof, that I was loth to omit anie thing that might increase the readers knowledge, which causeth the booke to grow so great. But receiuing them by parts, and at seuerall times (as I might get them) it may be, that hauing had more regard to the matter than the apt penning, I haue not ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (1 of 12) - William the Conqueror • Raphael Holinshed
... forever, one and inseparable, or words to that effect. Painfully and protestingly the noble fellowship of the free and untrammeled press pointed out that if the "Clarion" insisted on informing the public, they too, in self-defense, must supply something in the way of information to cover themselves, loth though they were so to do. But the burden of sin and vengeance would rest upon the paper which forced them into such a course. Still patient, Hal found refuge in truism: to wit, that what his fellow editors chose to do was wholly and specifically their business. ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... legal proceedings, and they are very certain to have their due effect, as the Lady Superior would be exceedingly loth to have the internal arrangements of her convent made public, and she is well aware that if she resists she will run the risk of that being the case. I have already had something to do with her ladyship, as well ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... the hermitage she went Through smiling fields of waving corn, She saw some youths on sport intent, Sons of the hermits, and their peers, And one among them tall and lithe Royal in port,—on whom the years Consenting, shed a grace so blithe, So frank and noble, that the eye Was loth to quit that sun-browned face; She looked and looked,—then gave a sigh, And slackened ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... ago. And to-night Bess seemed loth to leave the fire, but sat hugging her knees in a restless fashion, and staring at the blackening embers in a puzzled way. A tremendous blast struck the cottage, and nearly shook the kitchen window ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... Rachel's side,' Penelope said. 'And, for anything I know to the contrary, it's all Miss Rachel's temper, and nothing else. I am loth to distress you, Rosanna; but don't run away with the notion that Mr. Franklin is ever likely to quarrel with HER. He's a great deal too fond ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... merchandise of these imperfect converts to the faith. It sufficed to insist upon the peril to the State if an element so ill-assimilated to the nation were allowed to increase unchecked. At the same time, the Papacy was nothing loth to help them in their undertaking. Sixtus V., one of the worst of Pontiffs, sat then on S. Peter's chair. He readily discerned that a considerable portion of the booty might be indirectly drawn into his exchequer; and he knew ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... loth to break The spell of that strange dream, "One proof the more" Said Wotton at last, "that songs can mount and fly To truth; for this fantastic vision of yours Of life in other spheres, awakes in me, Either that slumbering knowledge of Socrates, Or some strange ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... upwards from the packed square. The Republic had been their plaything, the caprice of an impulsive people, and they were loth to own themselves in the wrong. Nicholas of Reist read their faces like a book. Now or never must he win his way from this people, or fall forever from their regard. His pale countenance was lit with ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... The landlord, nothing loth, went off into a long and circumstantial story of the discovery of the body, with minute details of how the innkeeper at Mambury had traced the supposed murderer—who gave no name—by an envelope which he'd ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... plans, and she was so loth to leave him that he was forced to remind her that they had passed the home of Lucy Gaines a full furlong or more. He left her at the door, his heart exultant, ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... dealt in Spanish romances, supposing them to be history; and these are slow to abandon their delusions. At enormous expense they have gathered volumes of authorities; will they readily admit them to be cheats and counterfeits? They grudge the time too they have spent in their perusal; and are loth, as well they may be, to lose it. But individual loss and injury is" [the proof-reader will please not to interfere with Mr. Wilson's grammar] "perhaps inevitable in the search after truth. Men cannot be held down to the theories of barbarism. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... late the next morning, but during it Joshua received a telegram which required him to drive over to Withering, nearly twenty miles. He was loth to go; but Mary would not hear of his remaining, and so before noon he drove off in his ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... but cast No chill across the tablecloth; I, all-forgotten, shivered, sad To stay and yet to part how loth: I passed from the familiar room, I whom from love had passed away, Like the remembrance of a guest That tarrieth but ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... loth and unwilling to perish, I began to compare my sin with others to see if I could find that any of those that were saved, had done as I had done. So I considered David's adultery, and murder, and found ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... was loth to stop singing, and the last four lines of the impromptu terzetto suddenly became a so-called "endless canon," and Franziska's aunt had wit and confidence enough to add all sorts of ornamentation in her quavering soprano. Mozart promised afterward to write out the song at leisure, according ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... occasion—circulating with a clearness intensified—to strike him as so happily pervasive. She was different, younger, fairer, with the colour of her braided hair more than ever a not altogether lucky challenge to attention; yet he was loth wholly to explain it by her having quitted this once, for some obscure yet doubtless charming reason, her almost monastic, her hitherto inveterate black. Much as the change did for the value of her presence, she had never yet, when all was said, made it for him; and he was not ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... When rivulets were loth to creep, Except unto the pillow moss, And distant lake, encurtained deep, Was but a silver thread ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... now Than ever, Bounty of this virtuous Tree. So said he, and forbore not Glance or Toy Of amorous Intent, well understood Of Eve, whose Eye darted contagious Fire. Her hand he seiz'd, and to a shady Bank Thick over-head with verdant Roof embower'd, He led her nothing loth: Flowrs were the Couch, Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel, And Hyacinth, Earths freshest softest Lap. There they their fill of Love, and Loves disport, Took largely, of their mutual Guilt the Seal, The Solace of their Sin, till dewy Sleep ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... a sarcasm thrown on a whole profession at once; when a gentleman leaving the company, somebody who sat next Dr. Johnson asked him, who he was? "I cannot exactly tell you, sir," replied he, "and I would be loth to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney." He did not, however, encourage general satire, and for the most part professed himself to feel directly contrary to Dr. Swift; "who," ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... buds of my primrose with a new kind of interest, and you never saw such a primrose! I begin to believe in Ovid, and look for a metamorphosis. The leaves are turning white and springing up as high as corn. Want of air, and of sun, I suppose. I should be loth to think it—want of friendship ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... of it than any former occupant," said Mr. Quickenham, who would indeed have been very loth to allow his wife's brother-in-law to go into a law suit, but still felt that a very pretty piece of litigation was about to be thrown away in this matter ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... her husband close, and entreated him to tell her what the secret was; she vowed and swore she would not divulge it, and did not refrain from shedding tears at her not being trusted. And he, nothing loth to convince her of her folly, said, "Your importunity, wife, has prevailed, listen to a dreadful and portentous matter. It has been told us by the priests that a lark has been seen flying in the air with a golden helmet and spear: it is this portent that we are considering and discussing with ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... that consoles him for all," said Edward, nearly laughing. "So long as he could utter his gibe, Henry little recked which way the world passed round him; and I trow he has found some mate of low degree, that he would be loth to produce ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... point was thus decided: As his opinion was divided 'Twixt pie and jelly, he was loth Either to leave, so ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... alacrity, and to please her I said yes; while the Cherub, who was evidently longing for a siesta, shrugged his shoulders dutifully. It seemed that we could see the pasture which was Vivillo's drawing-room without trespassing upon Carmona's land, on which I should have been loth to set my foot, even for Pilar; but when, after twenty minutes' walk across meadows, we arrived at the hedge which divided the Duke's ganaderia from Colonel O'Donnel's farm, Dick would not be satisfied with a distant inspection of the grazing bulls. Pilar (denuded of her mantilla, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Nothing loth, Winnie complied and the other heard him through in silence, until he told of Willa's disappearance the morning after the revelation, and the little note she had left ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... that. The Empress, nothing loth, began making certain dispositions. Troops were moved, men were shifted here and there in a way that presaged action; and the Emperor, now thoroughly alarmed and yielding to the entreaties of his followers, sent two members of the ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... I should be loth to vex the reader with any description of the scene before us and beneath us, even if I could faithfully portray it. But I recollect, with a pleasure not to be left unrecorded, the sweetness of the great fountain playing in the square before the church, ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells |
