"Whim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the moderately poor the home is the only place of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of anarchy. It is the only spot on the earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to enter. He can eat his meals on the floor in his own house if he likes. I often do it myself; it gives a curious, childish, poetic, picnic feeling. There would be considerable ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... me, as we followed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the Civil Wars. "For," said he, "he was sent out of the field upon a private message the day before the Battle of Worcester." The whim of narrowly escaping, by having been within a day of danger, with other matters above mentioned, mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I was more delighted with my friend's wisdom ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... a despotism, the lives, liberty and property of the people are at the command of the ruler, subject to his whim. [6] For an illustration of the method of securing private property for public use, ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... Iden humoured her every whim and let her do just as she pleased; the next she insisted on ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... all is perhaps the most wonderful case in point, and when one arrives at the end of things, one need not care any longer. Death, which at this moment mows down men so recklessly, leaves us standing in a bare field by a mere whim. One is astonished and a little thoughtful ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... King's army in Wales, he was succeeded by the false-hearted Geoffrey de Mountmorres, who held the office till 1247. During the next twenty-five years, about half as many Justices were placed and displaced, according to the whim of the successive favourites at the English Court. In 1252, Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., was appointed with the title of Lord Lieutenant, but never came over. Nor is there in the series of rulers we ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... laughed at ribald jests and quaffed the liquid flame, and the dark-hued nectar which concealed the serpent beneath its foam; I held my head aloft to seem with pride imbued; I gibed at fortune's whim and grinned a soulless sneer at my fate to conceal ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never opposed. He had also formed a very exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... It was to his credit that neither libertinism nor disgrace nor remorse withered at its root this herb of grace. Cynical speeches with regard to friends and friendship, often quoted to his disadvantage, need not be taken too literally. Byron talked for effect, and in accordance with the whim of the moment. His acts do not correspond with his words. Byron rejected and repudiated bath Protestant and Catholic orthodoxy, but like the Athenians he was "exceedingly religious." He could not, he did not wish to, detach himself ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... of being a land-owner for the first time, or perhaps it was the abject wretchedness of the only hotel in town that inspired the whim which seized me during my solitary dinner. I had spent one night here, and did not welcome the prospect of a second. A return to New York was not practicable, because I had arranged to meet several contractors and an architect at the farm, next morning, ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... insisted that Agnes' child should be raised as a white child, and the secret of his birth effectually concealed. At first, Mr. Le Croix thought it was a passing whim that she would soon forget; that the child would amuse and interest her for awhile; and then she would tire of him as she had of other things; such as her birds, her squirrel, and even her Shetland pony. But when he found that instead of her intention being a passing whim it ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... no friends," said Stratton coldly. "I am not the first man who ever took to a solitary life. It suits my whim. Now, please go and leave me ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... road that lies open before him into the distance, and shows him the far-off spires of some city, or a range of mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, along a low horizon. In short, he may gratify his every whim and fancy, without a pang of reproving conscience, or the least jostle to his self-respect. It is true, however, that most men do not possess the faculty of free action, the priceless gift of being able to live for the moment only; and as they begin ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the sun was hanging on the face of the mightier sky-cliff opposite, and the sea stretched for visible miles and miles along the shore on either hand, its wide blue mantle fringed with lovely white wherever it met the land, and scalloped into all fantastic curves, according to the whim of the nether fires which had formed its bed; and the rush of the waves, as they bore the rising tide up on the shore, was the one music fit for the whole. Ear and eye, touch and smell, were alike invaded with blessedness. I ought to have kept this to ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... Gibbon, son of a Hampshire gentleman, was born at Putney, near London, April 27, 1737. After a preliminary education at Westminster, and fourteen "unprofitable" months at Magdalen College, Oxford, a whim to join the Roman church led to his banishment to Lausanne, where he spent five years, and acquired a mastery of the French language, formed his taste for literary expression, and settled his religious doubts in a profound ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... retrace their steps along the corduroy road, the boys wondering somewhat over the whim of Mr. Hardman. He had not acted like a man who had come to look for a place to erect a dwelling, and, though they expected some oddity in a man who preferred to live in the solitude of the forest, they could not account for his questions about whether or not ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... that my old bones would have a rest, I am bundled off to this howling wilderness to strip, and jibber, and be ugly and hairy, and pull down fences and waylay sheep, and waltz around with a club, and play 'Wild Man' generally—and all to gratify the whim of a bedlam of crazy newspaper scribblers? From one end of the continent to the other, I am described as a gorilla, with a sort of human seeming about me—and all to gratify this quill-driving scum ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... live things in their pride to remain. I will not kill one grasshopper vain Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door. I let him out, give him one chance more. Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim, Grasshopper ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... it is a whim in me or a piece of foolishness. Yet, the way I am constituted, it is practically impossible for me to do anything for my sake alone. Your sympathy would act as a stimulus to keep me to my resolution." He drew from his pocket a letter from Peter Schmidt, saying that near Meriden ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... whim, to count the jewellery of his famous sonnets as second in importance to the nomenclature of a vegetable! I in my turn was delighted with his ayacot. How right I was to suspect the outlandish word of American Indian origin! How right the insect was, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... hard the lot of them is that have to do so too. Besides, I can't help thinkin', what, perhaps, you never thought of, yourselves, ladies, that every person, who, while they can just as well turn their hands to other business, yet, for their own whim, or pleasure, or convenience, or profit, chooses to do work, of which there a'n't enough now in the world to keep in employment them that must get such work to do, or else beg, or sin, or starve,—when I think, I say, that every such person helps some poor cretur into the grave, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... argy that a man Who does about the best he can Is plenty good enugh to suit This lower mundane institute— No matter ef his daily walk Is subject fer his neghbor's talk, And critic-minds of ev'ry whim Jest all git up ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... to him from his mother, who, when not frightened, and when there was nothing on the horizon which might cross the slightest whim of her husband, was an amiable, good-natured woman. If it was not such an awful thing to say of anyone, I should say that she ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... to meet at eight o'clock and before that hour Kenneth Forbes had to finish the first chapter of a serial story. The literary society, named in accordance with the grotesque whim of Oxford undergraduates, consisted of eight members, and it was proposed that each one should contribute a chapter. Forbes was of a fertile wit, and he had been nominated the first operator. He had been allowed the whole Christmas vacation to prepare his opening chapter; which was ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... let you go—for one small consideration on your part. You've never paid that debt of yours. You will pay it now—in full, freely, both arms round my neck. Come, I've a right to ask that much. It's just a whim that ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... gently. "Must you continue this after it has turned into a farce? Must you continue acting from pique, when the thing has been over for more years than you care to remember? Must you keep on now because of a whim to make your life miserable and the lives of others? Will you threaten fifty men with death and ruin, because you once were called a thief? It is folly, sir, and you know it, utter useless folly! Pray do not stare at me. It ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... to flop and twist and turn Whenever 'tis our whim. Yet social etiquette we learn Because we're ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... bayonets grim And babies slaughtered for a whim, Cathedrals made the sport of shells, No mercy, even for a child, As though the imps of all the hells Were crazed ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... her—I should be overjoyed to do it, if there would be nothing preposterous about it, or that would seem like a man making himself too much of a fool, and so degrading her in consenting. I can make her comparatively rich, as you know, and I would indulge her every whim. There is the idea, bluntly put. It would set right something in my mind that has been wrong for forty years. After my death she would have plenty of freedom and plenty of means to ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... whose eccentric entertainment we have laughed many an hour, has here produced a most pleasant and lively melange, the result of much whim and observation, blended with a vast fund of genuine anecdotes, and a very particular account of the various amusements, customs, manners, and inhabitants of the places of fashionable resort in this kingdom."—Monthly Mirror for ...
— The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts • Augustus William Iffland
... like him,' forsooth! And pray, are you going to reject the best offer in the county because of a simple whim? the mere fancy of a vain-headed, foolish and inexperienced girl? I did not before suppose that a daughter of mine would manifest such a ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... hostess, especially if the entertainment be a dinner or luncheon may possibly, even at the eleventh hour, be able to supply the vacancy. Make it explanatory as well, that she may feel positive that no mere whim has caused the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... madame had conveyed to the man and the assembled household generally, her own great scorn of us, and of our plans. What a whim this, of driving, forsooth, to the Mont! Dieu sait—French people were not given to any such follies; they were serious-minded, always, in matters of travel. To travel at all, was no light thing; one made one's ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... foolish whim, but I do crave—ocular evidence for my belief that those books were written and were published. I want to see them all ranged along goodly shelves. A few days ago I sat in one of those libraries which seem to be doorless. Nowhere, to the eye, was broken the array of serried volumes. Each ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... in particular," said the captain. "It's only a whim of mine, to which I thought you might perhaps agree, in consideration of ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... the colorless curls gently; looking back; thinking that she had done much for him; he would humor her whim, not behave like a beast to her. But his brother—It would be better for Stephen in the end. Certainly. Yet he sighed: a womanish, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... o'clock it seemed to the waiting throngs that several ordinary days had passed since they left their sagging canvas cots at daybreak to stand attendant upon the whim of chance. They gathered in the blazing sun in front of the office of the paper, looking in at Editor Mong, who seemed more like a quack doctor that morning than ever before, with his wrinkled coat-sleeves pushed above his elbows and his cuffs tucked back over ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... keeps aloof from the prayers, but respects his scruples, and reveres his character. For proof thereof, I did not cease urging on Harry his careless promise, that our union should have our father's blessing on it; and the good pastor falling in with my whim, prevailed on Mr. Truelocke to remarry us very privately in the little church I spoke of, he himself assisting. 'Twas a foolish fancy, I wot, but I was not easy till I had it gratified. And it ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... republicanism has shipwrecked? If that power is given to the chief citizen, the way is prepared for the tyrant. If it abides peacefully in a royal house, it abides with cyphers who dignify, without obstructing, a popular constitution. Do not mistake me, Mr. Townshend. This is no whim of a sentimental girl, but the reasoned conclusion of the men who achieved our liberty. There is every reason to believe that General Washington shares our views, and Mr. Hamilton, whose name you may know, is ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... rid himself of you in a more summary manner, daughter," rejoined Rochford. "If you would stand well with him, you must study his lightest word, look, and action—humour him in every whim—and yield to every caprice. Above all, you ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... in His Humour, is a key to all his dramas. The word "humour" in his age stood for some characteristic whim or quality of society. Jonson gives to his leading character some prominent humor, exaggerates it, as the cartoonist enlarges the most characteristic feature of a face, and so holds it before our attention that all other qualities are lost sight of; which is the method that Dickens ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... They were in their room, with the windows closed, trying to escape the terrible sirocco by shutting it out and putting on thin clothes. She did not want to see her husband with such a gloomy face nor listen to his complaints. As long as he was crazy and was set on his whim, she did not dare to oppose him. He could paint her; but only a study, not a picture. When he was tired of reproducing her flesh on the canvas they would destroy it,—just as if ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... know one thing were his sight less dim; That it whirls not to suit his petty whim, That it ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... faithfully and persistently, to get out coal for Peter Harrigan, he had never once been able to get ahead of his bill for the necessities of life at Old Peter's store. All his belongings in the world could be carried in a bundle on his back, and whether he ever saw these again would depend upon the whim of old Peter's camp-marshal and guards. Rusick would take to the road, with a ticket purchased by the union. Perhaps he would find a job and perhaps not; in any case, the best he could hope for in life was to work for some other Harrigan, ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... making a study of this singular man. He appeared to me the exact type of a class which ought to exist somewhere but which was unknown to me. One could never tell whether his outbursts were the despair of a man sick of life, or the whim of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... him as a victim of his own weakness, as the prey of a predaceous and unscrupulous woman who had intrigued and would continue to intrigue against his happiness, a woman away from her own world, a self-complacent and sensual privateer who for a passing whim, for a momentary appeasement of her exile, stood ready to sacrifice the last of his self-respect. She was self-complacent, but she was also a woman with an unmistakable physical appeal. She was undeniably attractive, as far as appearances went, and added to that attractiveness ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: Little right has he to sing 360 Through whose heart in such an hour Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'Tis no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, 365 A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all, For her time of need, and then 370 Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... no resisting the playfulness of his wit, and the exhilarating whim of his manner. My ill humour soon evaporated; and yielding to the sympathetic gaiety he had inspired, I said to him—'You are a wicked wit, Belmont. But, though I laugh, do not imagine I am a convert to your mandevilian ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the price?" began Manilov, and then stopped. Presently he went on: "Surely you cannot suppose me capable of taking money for souls which, in one sense at least, have completed their existence? Seeing that this fantastic whim of yours (if I may so call it?) has seized upon you to the extent that it has, I, on my side, shall be ready to surrender to you those souls UNCONDITIONALLY, and to charge myself with the whole ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... while," she cried, looking up through her wind-tossed hair, "'tis joy to me! Lay you down and rest a while and trust the boat to me." And seeing how quick she was to meet each send of the seas (that were already running high) glad enough was I to humour her whim, and clambered forward again. And there (having nought better to do) I set about rigging a rough awning athwart the bows, with canvas and a stout spar, which methought should keep out the spray and any chance sea that might break forward; though indeed ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... boy quickly, with a hot colour in his bent face. "Simply and truly, Baas Cogez did not have me asked this year. He has taken some whim against me." ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... "A woman's whim, Dr. Watson. When you know me better you will understand that I cannot always give reasons for what I ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... foreigner. I do not think it is of the slightest importance to anybody. I have not opened it, I have no idea what it contains, and your husband himself said it was nothing—only I have promised to give it him alone; it was a whim of the little Frenchman who entrusted me with it, and whom, I must honestly tell you, I believe to have been half-mad. Only, unfortunately, I have promised to deliver ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... quickly learned to purge His fancy of the tender whim That she was floating at the verge Of womanhood, half hid to him, Saw her with ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... There is no softness in my future. Thank goodness, at least I am young; I may have a great career; I will be satisfied to be famous. It will be terribly, terribly, difficult to be famous through the whim of another woman; but I suppose Bertha will ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... off the perfumes from his visage with his hand. He eats from the sacred vessels, and then breaks them, and he enumerates, mentally, his fleets, his armies, his peoples. Presently, through a whim, he will burn his palace, along with his guests. He calculates on rebuilding the Tower of ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... to try to take hers without murmuring, although convinced that it was a mere whim, stipulating only that she might go out in the kitchen to swallow it. But with Wealthy, who was younger, the ingestion of Vermifuge was usually preceded by an orgy of tears and supplications. Addison, who was older and generally well, long smiled in ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... morning; she developed a sudden and unshakable resolve to be one of the party, and after his remonstrances had finally brought stormy tears to her eyes, Allison surrendered in perplexity to her whim. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... training, and (it hardly needs explaining) got a quite unique degree: With his blushing honours laden, he espoused a lovely maiden at the end of Volume Three: This alone he had to grieve for—that he'd nothing more to live for, or expect from Fortune's whim: For I never could discover, when his Oxford days were over, what the ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... really want to go on with it, I am to go to Philadelphia to study there. Hope will be shocked, and Hu will make all manner of fun of me, I know. I do hope you and Billy will stand by me, Ted, and believe it is not a schoolgirl whim, but a real wish to find some work ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... determined, in migration as in civic relations, not by the will or whim of the individual, but by the welfare of the state. Further than this, the government has the right to deport at any time any aliens who may be regarded as unfit to remain. There ought to be no confusion as ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... set their hearts upon. The prince, therefore, to make the time seem short to him, proposed as a kind of merry pastime that they should invent some artful scheme to make Benedick and Beatrice fall in love with each other. Claudio entered with great satisfaction into this whim of the prince, and Leonato promised them his assistance, and even Hero said she would do any modest office to help her cousin ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... pinched quarters of serfs. The lords of trade have their hundreds and thousands of humble subordinates over whom they rule, often with a rod of iron. They may be turned away from work and wages at any moment, by any whim of the selfish employer. Hence, through fear of this, they lose their manhood, and dare not assert even a decision of their conscience. There is no more melancholy sight to my eyes than that which I often see nowadays—the former ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... arm-chair, and then handed it to whomever the King ordered him to give it to. On this evening the King, glancing all around him, cast his eye upon me, and told the valet to give the candle to me. It was an honour which he bestowed sometimes upon one, sometimes upon another, according to his whim, but which, by his manner of bestowing it, was always coveted, as a great distinction. My surprise may be imagined when I heard myself named aloud for this office, not only on this but on many other occasions. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... men trace their ancestry, To ape or Adam: let them please their whim; But I in June am midway to believe A tree among my far progenitors, Such sympathy is mine with all the race, Such mutual recognition vaguely sweet There is between us. Surely there are times 90 When they consent to own me of their kin, And condescend to me, and call ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... tearful. Her manner grew more and more moody and constrained, till even her matter-of-fact uncle and aunt, good easy souls, and her absorbed cousin, became curious and anxious. The little elfish black pony was in more frequent request than ever; for his mistress now went out at any hour that suited her whim, in any weather, chose the loneliest by-ways, and rode furiously. Often, at evening, she ascended a dark gorge of the western hills and plunged down on the other side, as though in hot pursuit of the setting sun; and at length there came a report ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... hoar, spake the lordly ocean: "You are sheen and steadfastness: I am sheen and motion, Gulfing argosies for whim, navies for a notion. ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... not an abrogation of the Sabbath, but, on the contrary, a confirmation of the universal and merciful appointment. It does not give permission to keep or neglect it, according to whim or for the sake of amusement, but it does draw, strong and clear, the distinction between a positive rite which may be modified, and an unchangeable precept of the moral law which it is better for a man to die ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... for her Highness in some whim had insulted him with his origin, caused pork to be removed from before him at table, or injured him in some such silly way; and he had a violent animosity to the old Baron de Magny, both in his capacity ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... where another would have been glad to be off. The excellent Davidson had discovered the fact without discovering the reason, and took a humane interest in Heyst's strange existence, while at the same time his native delicacy kept him from intruding on the other's whim of solitude. He could not possibly guess that Heyst, alone on the island, felt neither more nor less lonely than in any other place, desert or populous. Davidson's concern was, if one may express it so, ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... beau-sabreur, whose blade A dozen desert spearmen faced and stayed, Stoops his high-shoulder'd stature To hear the twittering tones of Tiny TIM, A midget, but the soul of whit and whim, The genius ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 1, 1890 • Various
... specification if close estimates from reliable contractors are desired. Surely no engineer will claim that this is too unimportant a matter for consideration when it is known that ramming can easily be made to cost as high as 40 cts. per cu. yd., depending largely upon the whim of the inspector. ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... have killed him, you know. Murders, my dear fellow, are committed by the most unlikely people, and for curious reasons: they have been committed by quite respectable females—like Miss Pett—for nothing but a mere whim." ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... always successful in his labours, I should answer you, as I have told him, No: for the profit and applause attendant upon them are not commensurate with his exertions. Moreover, I do verily think that, in some few instances, he sacrifices his judgment to another's whim; by a reluctance to put out the strength of his own powers. He is also, I had almost said, the admiring slave of Ritsonian fastidiousness; and will cry 'pish' if a u be put for a v, or a single e for a double one: but take him fairly as he is, and place him firmly in the bibliographical ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... unmercifully berated that he had dragged his family to the country, destroying their happiness and spending all his money for—what, for what? Just to gratify a whim, a boyish illusion. ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... Mix was startled, but outwardly he looked grieved. "Tuesday? Now—that is—wait a minute." He created the impression that he was juggling vast affairs, in order to gratify a whim of his old friend's sister. As a matter of fact, he was wondering what plausible excuse he could give without revealing any hint of the truth. "Is ...
— Rope • Holworthy Hall
... not a single sign of anger. He was simply puzzled. He had come into touch with something which he could not understand. There was Bridges, earning a salary at his theatre, to be thrown out into the streets or made a star of, according to his whim; Heselton, a family man, drawing his salary, and a good one, too, also from the theatre; men whose faces were familiar to him—some of them, he knew, on newspapers in which he owned a controlling interest. The power of which he had bragged was a real ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... memory; but chiefly in a hallucination that possesses him. He thinks that he is still the master of Lone as well as the Duke of Hereward. He thinks that he lives in London, and in the most Objectionable part of London, only to gratify my 'eccentric whim' of being a journalist. And he daily and hourly urges me to return ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... its hoops; his skin drying like a mummy's; his muscles in a starchy misery from lack of exercise. He felt boxed up, an express package labelled and shipped. When he crawled into his berth at night it was with a sense of giving himself up to asphyxiation at the whim of strange gods. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... client; to-night you are my guest. All who enter here leave their business, with their hats, in the hall. Look; there isn't a law book on those shelves; that table never was defaced by a title deed or parchment. You look puzzled? Well, it was a whim of mine to put my residence and my work-shop under the same roof, yet so distinct that they would never interfere with each other. You know the house above is let out to lodgers. I occupy the first floor with my mother ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... I to him; of passports We never had the whim. Strong ones I believe it would need To recall, to our side of the limit, Subjects of Pluto King of the Dead: But, from the Germanic Empire Into the gallant and cynical abode Of Messieurs your pretty Frenchmen,—A jolly and beaming air, Rubicund faces, not ignorant of wine, These are the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... needn't trouble yourself! We can look after the children ourselves. You better save what you get to look after yourself when those two get over this whim!" ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... also that the falcon was renowned as the finest bird throughout the countryside, as well as being the joy and pride of his master's heart. But the boy was fretful and restless, and, fearing to thwart his whim lest his life should depend on it, the poor mother promised to go and ask for the falcon on the very ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... built these two years if he carries the day to-night. I've got a consultation at Decker's—the old lady is dying. It's no sort of use dragging a tired man out there; I can't do her any good; but they will have it. I'm at the beck and call of every whim. Isn't that dinner ready? I wish I had time to change my boots! They are wet through. My head aches horribly. Brake telegraphed me to get down to Stock Street before two o'clock to save what is left of that Santa Ma stock. I ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... appeased only by possession, regardless of cost—was much of a mystery, and afforded the energetic correspondents a fruitful text for many a day. Both, as is well known, had unlimited means with which to indulge their sudden whim; where kings and princes resigned themselves to the melancholy fact that the gem was not for them, these two men battled for it with an unlicensed tendering of fortunes that amazed the world; and one may easily imagine the sleepless anxiety of the Paternostros, as first one and then ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... puddles—the usual Russian rural thoroughfare. Not because Prince Pavlo wanted to give the peasants work, not because he wanted to save them from starvation—not at all, although, in the gratification of his own whim, he happened to render those trifling services; but merely because he was a great "barin"—a prince who could have any thing he desired. Had not the other barin—Steinmetz by name—superintended the work? Steinmetz the hated, the loathed, the tool of ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... strange that before leaving London my mother, possessed by a strange whim, as I thought, distributed to many of us little things belonging to her. I laughed at her for what I called her "testamentary disposition," little dreaming ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... how it is with labor in our industrial system: we can buy labor, which means we can buy human life and thought, a portion of God's being, and make a profit out of it. By so selling himself the worker is enslaved and limited in a thousand ways. The power of dismissal of one person by another at whim acts against independence of character, or the free expression or opinion in thought, in politics, and in religion. The soul is stunted in its growth, and spiritual life made subordinate to material ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... fine!" said Ruth with sparkling eyes, "I'm sure he's worth a lot more than some of the fellows who have always had every whim gratified. Now, which street? You'll have to tell me. I'm ashamed to say I don't know this part of town very well. Isn't it pretty down here? This house? What a wonderful clematis! I never saw such a wealth ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... as he finished his simile. Then he lifted the silver cover of a dish which had just arrived, and gave his whole attention to a noble Welsh rabbit, an odd dainty for a Riviera supper—but Ciro prided himself on gratifying any whim of any customer, at five ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... sheep, bred and fattened for the shambles; and this hind that I caress,—if I were the park-keeper, and her time for my bullet had come, would you think her life was the safer because, in my own idle whim, I had tamed her to trust to the hand ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... analogy. Be reasonable; you are a being of will; you can do or not do. He is only a child who exercises no self-control, who is governed only by caprice, whim, or whatever passion of the moment. These follies, of which my mother makes account, and rightly, are beneath one of your age. There is in them nothing ennobling, charming; nothing that should gratify a mind that has the faintest conception ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... all such a matter of personal whim. For instance before Bulgaria entered the war on the side of Germany, even the best informed Germans predicted that King Ferdinand would never join Germany because of an incident which occurred in the Royal Palace of Berlin. This is ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... higher aspirations, and seeks to emulate the peewee, commencing and ending his career as a flycatcher by an awkward chase after a beetle or "miller." He is hunting around in the dull grass now, I suspect, with the desire to indulge this favorite whim. There!—the opportunity is afforded him. Away goes a little cream-colored meadow-moth in the most tortuous course he is capable of, and away goes Socialis in pursuit. The contest is quite comical, though I dare say it is serious enough to the moth. The chase continues for a few yards, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... I have,—to that where General Bredow slept last winter,—I should work more commodiously. My Secretary (Collini) and I could work together there. I should have a little more sun, which is a great point for me.—Only the whim of a sick man, perhaps! Well, even so, your Majesty will have pity on it. You promised to make me happy." ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... sudden whim of Klaas Verlaan's to make his ward a child of Keizersgracht; but it brought him in more ducats than he cared to ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... Englishman had the end in view, you see, whereas the lesser brain of the Spaniard would have sacrificed the battle for a personal whim, having lost sight, in his vanity, of the importance of ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... of the dog commences with maiming him while a puppy. He finds fault with the ears that nature has given him, and they are rounded or cut into various shapes, according to his whim or caprice. It is a cruel operation. A great deal of pain is inflicted by it, and it is often a long time before the edge of the wound will heal: a fortnight or three weeks at least will elapse ere the animal ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... is full of instruction. A sovereign concerning himself about trivialities as petty as this pretext on which he sends a man to death; the shameful indignity put upon the ladies-in-waiting to minister to a momentary whim; the composition of poetry by common carpenters, and the ride for life on a horse which there is not time to saddle. It is an instructive picture of ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... mother, his sister, or his friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which had very important results for him, it seemed to him—as it seems to everyone in such cases—that it was merely some silly whim that seized him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events, had immense consequences for him and for ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... or the fault of romances that we look upon those distant people as more elemental than we, and thus feel for them the indulgent compassion that a child excites? However it is, theirs is to us a simple time of primitive emotion and romance, and the tapestries they have left us encourage the whim. ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... to twenty-five below zero and falling. Wherefore, it was necessary to organize gangs of life-savers, who patrolled the streets to pick up drunken men from where they fell in the snow and where an hour's sleep would be fatal. Daylight, whose whim it was to make them drunk by hundreds and by thousands, was the one who initiated this life saving. He wanted Dawson to have its night, but, in his deeper processes never careless nor wanton, he saw to it that it was a night ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... for a Louise Duval who was young and pretty twenty-one years ago: this search ought to interest me more than that which I entrusted to you tonight, respecting the pearly-robed lady; for in the last I but gratify my own whim, in the first I discharge a promise to a friend. You, so perfect a Frenchman, know the difference; honour is engaged to the first. Be sure you let me know if you find any other Madame or Mademoiselle Duval; and of course you remember your promise not to mention to any one ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attempted to feel her cunt, and I never had her. The old woman said she was frightened to bring her again, that she and Mary Davis might manage it together, and when Davis came back I wished her to try, but she refused to have anything to do with it. The lech passed away, for it was but a whim. At that time I liked ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Francis," rejoined the other, "that vengeance—ample, refined vengeance—cannot be too dearly purchased; and you will now perceive that I am willing to pay as extravagantly as yourself for the gratification of a whim. On no other terms than these would Lanyere consent to part with the authority he possesses, which while it will ensure you the hand of Aveline, will ensure me the keenest revenge upon Sir Jocelyn. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... on each side below, in which position he is exposed to the merciless scourge of the drummer, which is a common cat-o-nine-tails. It is painful even to think of such scenes as these, and when they take place at the mere whim and caprice of the hardened slave merchant, such a picture is revolting in the extreme. Here, however, severe as it may appear, it must be looked upon in a different point of view. The punishment is great, but with the certainty of receiving it, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish |
