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Wont   Listen
adjective
Wont  adj.  Using or doing customarily; accustomed; habituated; used. "As he was wont to go." "If the ox were wont to push with his horn."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wont" Quotes from Famous Books



... sheltered life. He had been denied the advantage which a public school would have brought to him and had gone to college surrounded by sycophants and poseurs as blatant as himself, and never once had the cold breath of criticism been directed at him, except in what he was wont to describe as the ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace

... those first stars, whose silver beams on high, Shining more brightly as the day goes by, Most travellers cannot at first descry, But eyes that wont to ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... to confess and after tell us the facts of his case." And she answered, "O my papa, I know how I will make proof of him." Then she went away and after supper her husband came in to her, according to his wont, whereupon Princess Dunya rose to him and took him under the armpit and wheedled him with winsomest wheedling (and all-sufficient[FN54] are woman's wiles whenas she would aught of men); and she ceased not to caress him and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... church furnish a vast preserve, the exploration of which would be a large undertaking. It must be confessed that the pious people who had in their hands some of the ancient hymn-books were justified in feeling that religion and poetry were not closely related, for many of the hymns they were wont to sing were guiltless of any poetic character. It was too often evident that the hymn-writer had been more intent on giving metrical form to proper theological concepts than on giving utterance to his own religious ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... deadly cold. We had not counted upon such weather in the sunny south. I recollected now that the Greeks were wont to represent Boreas as a chilly deity, and spoke of the Thracian breeze with the same deferentially deprecating adjectives which we ourselves apply to the east wind of our fatherland; but that apt classical memory somehow ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... a face at him, and gave the hammock a vicious twitch which caused him to rock with some violence for several seconds. As he was wont pathetically to remark, everyone bullied him because he was small and possessed only one arm, having shed the other by inadvertence somewhere on the ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... exhaustion of the forlorn and wretched creature, which creature is complete in itself, having its body, of which, being able to touch it, we say, "It is my body," and its heart and mind with intelligence, of which we are wont to think, "This is myself"; yet it is but a part, for the intelligence of our creature is by no means the intelligence of the divine soul, but a far lesser light: for with the intelligence of the divine soul we reach out to God and attain Him, but ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley

... had filled up the cup of his iniquity by translating the Scriptures into the English tongue; "making it," as one of the chroniclers angrily complains, "common and more open to laymen and to women than it was wont to be to clerks well learned and of good understanding. So that the pearl of the Gospel is trodden ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... come, be it foreign or Hellenic soil, and find no market for provisions, we are wont to help ourselves, not out of insolence but from necessity. There have been tribes like the Carduchians, the Taochians, the Chaldaeans, which, albeit they were not subject to the great king, yet were no less formidable than independent. These we had to bring over by our arms. The ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... a time a man hollowed a tree, and, launching it upon the water, found that it would bear him up. After this a few little floats, creeping cautiously near the land, were all on which men were wont to venture. Now there are sails fluttering on every sea, prodigious steamers throbbing like leviathans against wind and wave; harbors are built, and rocks and shoals removed; lighthouses gleam nightly from ten ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... sorcery of August skies In frilled crimson flaunt the hollyhocks, Where, lithely poised along the garden walks, His little maid enamoured blithe outvies The dipping butterflies In motion — ah, in grace how grown the while, Since he was wont to render to her eyes His knightly court, or touch with flitting smile Her father's heart by ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... white sails of the gay sea-parties were running up and swelling with the breeze; none of the usual naked and natatory cherubs were diving off the wharves into that deep, warm water; the windows on the seaward side of the town were closed; the countless children, that were wont to infest the lower streets as if they grew with no more cost or trouble than the grass between the bricks, had disappeared in the mysterious way in which swarms of flies will disappear, as if an east wind had blown them; but no east wind was blowing ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... hoisted her chin. "I dunno if she's a-seein' comp'ny to-day." The voice was amiably important. "Wont ye walk in? Take a seat and sit down, sur, and I'll go ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... a fine saying about Dante in the Ottimo Commento: "I, the writer, heard Dante say that never a rhyme had led him to say other than he would, but that many a time and oft he had made words say for him what they were not wont to say ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... Hall, and there attended the Duke of York, as we are wont, who is now grown pretty well, and goes up and down White Hall, and this night will be at the Council, which I am glad of. Thence to Westminster Hall, and there walked most of the morning, and among ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... was getting scarce, as might have been naturally expected, and his workmen, as they were wont, flocked to his doors, perpetually exclaiming, "Work! work! work!" Continually annoyed by their incessant entreaties, he called out to them in derision to go and make a dry road from Fortrose to Arderseir, over the Moray Firth. Immediately their cry ceased, and as Scott ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous

... on a tour of inspection through the various provinces of his empire, chanced on a certain occasion to be stopping at Bussora. And one evening, disguised, as was his wont, as a merchant, and, as usual, accompanied only by his faithful Grand Vizier, Giafer, he strolled through the bazaars silent and observant. Meeting with nothing worthy of arresting his particular attention, he wandered on until ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin

... ribald jests so common to sailors, the men slid into silence at every verse. Hushed, and more hushed they grew, till at last Harry sat among them like Orpheus among the charmed leopards and tigers. Harmless now the fangs with which they were wont to tear my zebra, and backward curled in velvet paws; and fixed their once glaring eyes in fascinated and fascinating brilliancy. Ay, still and hissingly all, for a time, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... signed with "his mark," although he evidently tried to force his unwilling hand to its accustomed work, his peculiar J being plainly written and followed by characters meant for the remaining letters of his first name. To earlier documents he was wont to affix a simple neat signature, and although not a clerkly penman like his friends John Tinker, Master Joseph Rowlandson and Ralph Houghton, his writing is superior to that of Major ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... wont to shower upon his head Their merry taunts, and oft from them he fled; For of their quips and jests he had more fear Than e'er he felt before a foeman's spear— And so he chose to ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... knee, ran the wild beast through with his hunting sword. The spear flew harmless over his head, unseen and unheard, and lost itself in the dead leaves twenty yards beyond him. On another day, Raymond, riding along, hawk on wrist, ten lengths before the others, as was his wont, did not notice that they gradually fell behind, until he halted in a narrow path of the forest, looked round, and found himself alone. He turned his horse's head and rode back a few yards, when suddenly three masked men, whom he took for robbers, sprang ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford

... the room where guests were wont to congregate and talk over the day's shooting, or discuss the merits of ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould

... dens. The magi came next, singing in their usual manner their ancient hymns. After them came the Chaldeans with their musical instruments, who are not only the prophets of the Babylonians, but their artists. The first are wont to sing the praises of the kings; the Chaldeans teach the motion of the stars, and the changes of the seasons. Then followed, last of all, the Babylonian knights, whose equipments, as well as that of ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley

... say you would have been afraid to go and do what we have done," answered Bully Pigeon, summoning up more courage than was his wont. ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... contents of vanished years; Why with complaints reproach the helpless dead? Thy husband ne'er will cross thy hopes again. Come, think of what a sky made yesterday The worthy dream of thrice divine Apollo! Hipparchus' plan was, we should take the road (As, when such mornings tempt me, is my wont) And cross the hills, along the coast, toward Mylae. He in disguise, a younger handier Chloe, Would lead my mule; must brown his face and arms: And thereon straight to wake her he was gone. Their voices from her cabin crossed the yard; He swears those parts of her are still well made ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... brother-in-law, was reluctant to insist on moderation. Lord John, however, stood firm, and the breaking up of the Government seemed inevitable. During the crisis which followed, Lord Palmerston, striking, as was his wont, from his own bat, rejected, under circumstances which Mr. Walpole has explained in detail in his Life of Lord John Russell, a proposal for a conference of the allied Powers. Lord John had already entered his protest against any one ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... of the Colosseum Panorama, but what must have been their sensations at a distance of 6,600 feet high, when with the huge machine they appeared little more than a speck. The varnish, or glare, which our Correspondent describes, was that charming effect which we are wont to admire here, on earth, in evening scenes, especially when they are lit up by the splendour of the setting sun; but which must be doubly enchanting when viewed from so great an altitude. He likewise tells us that the landscape appeared to recede like a moving panorama, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various

... But, to-day when the rain falls and the river rises, I creep into my hut and whimper like a dog. My strength is gone from me. I am an old man and the fire-carriage has made the ford desolate. They were wont to call me the ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling

... one who was wont to go to Saint Filomena asks protection against the devil (Novena, p. 22) and says: "Satan like a hungry lion makes a round about turn; his ministers vie with one another to put me down. I with my frailty am also the enemy of my own soul ...
— The Legacy of Ignorantism • T.H. Pardo de Tavera

... at last obtain free access to 'Our House', as he had been wont to call the mansion outside which he had sat shelterless so long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars as different from his mental plans of it as according to the nature of things it well could be, that far-seeing and far-reaching character, by way of asserting himself and making out ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... celerity, and arranged the double cyphers in the same way as the double vowel in heaven. Bianco, however, although so heedless, was quicker than Fido, and when the latter made a mistake, was called on to rectify it, but as quickly dismissed, as he was wont to pull his companion's ears, to ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... intellectual expression. Disease and death were stamped upon the grandsire and the boy as they sat side by side with averted eyes, each as if in the bitterness of his own heart refusing to comfort or be comforted. The two who had been wont to regard each other so fondly and so proudly, now seemed averse to hold communion together, while their appearance and style of dress, the black cap of the one and the black bandages of the other, denoted a sympathy ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... was, even people considerably out of range. If Dahlia herself was conscious of this—and I'm sure she must have been—she probably ascribed it to the charm of her appearance. She is even prettier than she used to be. But, as we were wont to say of her when we had owned ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... forgotten," he said, indifferently, and stood by the great polished platter-frame over the sideboard, dropping oil on the screws of a certain cunning instrument which he was wont to use in the elucidation of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... quite herself just then, distraite and talkative by turns, subject to long silences, followed by bursts of wild gaiety. The change in his manner to her was very marked, he no longer teased and chaffed her as he had been wont to do, but treated her with a quiet affection, almost a deference; the camaraderie offered to a friend who has come abreast of oneself on the hard path of life. Jacqueline in trouble, gallant and uncomplaining and piteously gay, was a Jacqueline who ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... thinking, the door softly opened, and Warner himself, in a high state of abstraction and revery, stalked noiselessly into the room, on his way to the garden, in which, when musing over some new spring for his invention, he was wont to peripatize. The sight of the gold on the table struck full on the philosopher's eyes, and waked him at once from his revery. That gold—oh, what precious instruments, what learned manuscripts it could purchase! That gold, it was the breath of life to his model! ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... over the drawing-room fire with Lady Meredith, when her husband's letter was brought to her. The Framley Court letter-bag had been discussed at breakfast; but that was now nearly an hour since, and Lady Lufton, as was her wont, was away in her own room writing her own letters, and looking after her own matters: for Lady Lufton was a person who dealt in figures herself, and understood business almost as well as Harold Smith. And on that morning she also had received a letter which had ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... the Food had caused his village and himself. He had been frightened at times and disturbed, but was he not alive still and the same still? and fifteen long years—a fair sample of eternity—had turned the trouble into use and wont. ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... carriere ouverte aux talens, (the tools to him who can handle them,) which is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein alone can Liberty lie. Madly enough he preached it is true, as enthusiasts and first missionaries are wont; with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant; yet as articulately, perhaps, as the case admitted. Or call him if you will, an American backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely forbear strong liquor, rioting, and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various

... further parley, the Sergeant saluted divers of the little crowd, and, wheeling sharply, strode along beside Bellew, rather more stiff in the back, and fixed of eye than was his wont, and jingling his imaginary spurs rather more ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol

... think there is more in it. I take it, therefore, to be a heart disabled, as to former actions, even as a man whose bones are broken is disabled, as to his way of running, leaping, wrestling, or ought else, which vainly he was wont to do; wherefore, that which was called a broken heart in the text, he calls his broken bones, in verse the eighth: 'Cause me,' saith he, 'to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice' (Psa 51:8). And why is the breaking of the heart compared to the breaking of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... master of Harrow, meeting the poor little draggletail urchin in the yard, desired to know, in awful accents, how so dirty a boy dared to show himself near the school! "He must have known me, had he seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps," adds his victim, "he did not recognize me by my face!" But it is comforting to learn, in another place, that justice overtook the oppressor. "Dr. Butler only lived to be Dean ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... starting-point as a principle that was incontestable, he was wont to look upon every beautiful woman who happened to appear on the horizon as his property ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Stevens whirled about with a bitter imprecation. He had already lost time needlessly—with a lookout plate he could cover more ground in ten minutes than he could cover afoot in a week. He flipped on the power and shot the violet beam out over the plateau to the district where he knew Nadia was wont to hunt. Not finding her there, he swung the beam in an ever widening circle around that district. Finally he saw a few freshly broken twigs, and scanned the scene with care. He soon found the trail of fresh blood which marked the path of the flight of the hexaped, and with the ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... morning—that sunrise of which poets write so sweetly, but which to the unromantic traveller is wont to seem a dreary thing—mother and nurse and child went their way in a great black steamer, redolent of oil and boiled mutton; and at nine o'clock at night—a starless March night—Clarissa and her belongings were deposited on St. Katharine's Wharf, amidst a clamour and bustle ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... trees, from time to time engaging in a desultory conversation. Philip endeavored to cheer his companion by talking lightly of boyhood days, as each turn of the road brought familiar places in the old estate in view. Here he and Katharine and Hilary had been wont to play; there was a favorite spot, a pleasant haunt here, this had been the scene of some amusing adventure. These well-meant reminiscences nearly drove Seymour mad, but he would not stop them. Finally, they came to the place where the road divided, one branch pursuing ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... Doctor was by no means altogether polemical. After defeating and utterly confounding the fathers who fired their last shot a thousand years ago, and who had not a word to say against his remaining master of the field, he was wont to unbend his mind and recreate his fancy by practical discourses. His sermons upon lying were celebrated all through the village. He gave the insidious vice no quarter. He charged upon it from all sides at once. Lying couldn't stand for a moment. White lies, black lies, blue lies, and green ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... ask what will seem a very absurd question," said he, in the dry, professional manner in which he was wont to intrude upon his patients' private internal affairs. "But you must remember I am ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... skill; but I thought that a jest, since it had proved too much for him. The second time, he spoke slightingly of my courage, saying that the reason I did not go in my father's Viking ship this spring was because I was wont to be afraid in battle. Now it had been seen by everybody that I wished to go. I had spent the winter in Normandy, yet I returned by the first ship, that I might make one of my father's crew. It was not my doing that my ship got lost in the fog ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... entreat your Excellency to accept my good will, which is laid prostrate at your feet; and should this short treatise not afford that pleasure, which self-love—that infirmity of the human mind—leads me to expect, will your Excellency deal with me, as you are wont to deal with all, and read this book and conceal its imperfections with the exercise of your toleration and gentleness. For you are so richly endowed with these and other virtues—which, through the divine power, cause lofty things not to keep aloof from humble ones; and which, in addition to ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... fat, opulent coward," he was wont to say, "who ever originated a beautiful ideal. In the clash of arms, in the battle for survival, amid hunger and death and danger, in the face of God as manifested in the display of Nature's most terrific forces, is born all that is finest ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... are arrayed," the President said, "has sought to impose its will upon the world. To this end it has increased armament until it has changed the face of war. In the sense in which we have been wont to think of armies, there are no armies in this struggle, there are entire nations armed. Thus, the men who remain to till the soil and man the factories are no less a part of the army that is in France than the men beneath the battle flags. It must be so with us. It is not an army that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... Although they left His altar blank and bare; Their ruthless hands could never rend and tear More than the walls, they could not hope to sway The utter faith that is the nation's heart; They could not bring a real destruction where Hymn music had been softly wont to play! They smothered beauty, and tore hope apart; But in the house of One who is supreme, The marks they left will now be sanctified; The broken walls, when war is but a dream, Will be a monument to those who died; And every shell-torn scar will stand for One Whose hands ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster

... first successful, but in time grew lazy and fond of good living, while Coupeau continued idle and became increasingly intemperate. Business began to go, and Gervaise became more careless, even taking more drink occasionally than she had been wont to do. About this time Lantier, her former lover, appeared again, and made friends with Coupeau, who agreed to take him into the house as a lodger. After that, the descent of Gervaise was rapid. Lantier never paid anything for his support, Coupeau drank more heavily than ever, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... and the others melted away also as they were wont to do when the vrouw showed signs of war, so that she and we two ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard

... black were speeding away in the ruddy flood of Jupiter-light, and Hawk Carse faced the danger trail alone, as was his wont. ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore

... planets, etc.) also is of some importance in the old latomies. It is noteworthy besides that sun and moon usually appear as human forms; the sun wears on its head a crown or garland or beaming star, while the moon image is wont to carry the symbol [Symbol: Silver]. Alchemy, too, likes to represent [Symbol: Gold] and [Symbol: Silver] as human, and indeed frequently as crowned figures, sometimes as a royal ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer

... me run away. (For we did run away.) Overstrain and collapse, ill-usage short of torture, hard living and short commons, one got a certain accustomedness to, according to the merciful law which within certain limits makes a second nature for us out of use and wont. The one pain that knew no pause, and allowed of no revival, the evil that overbore us, mind and body, was the evil of constant dread. Upon us little boys fear lay always, and the terror of it was that it was ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... you credit—I've no doubt they do you credit. They're very nicely drawn," returned her father, "but they're a good deal alike. We wont be able to hang more than two of them in the same room. Was that what they gave ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece, And the grandeur ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... below, where the midshipmen were wont to spend most of their leisure hours, the lads followed the Frenchmen. Here some drew cigarettes from their pockets, and, in spite of the regulations against this practice, proceeded to light up in most ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake

... Saxon are horsemen; when they are set in the saddle, they are then not so easily hoisted out again. As for the high-country horsemen, they, said Luther, are dancing gentlemen. God preserve the Landgrave; for a valiant man and Prince is of great importance. Augustus Caesar was wont to say, "I would rather be in an army of stags, where a lion is general, than to be in an army of lions where a stag ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther

... their ancient literature testifies to a high state of civilization, and to a considerable advance in sciences, in philosophy, and along literary lines, long before the golden age of Greece. From the earliest times even up to the present day the Hindu has been wont to put his thought into rhythmic form. The first of this poetry—it well deserves this name, being also worthy from a metaphysical point of view[44]—consists of the Vedas, hymns of praise and poems of worship, collected during the Vedic period which dates from approximately 2000 B.C. to 1400 B.C.[45] ...
— The Hindu-Arabic Numerals • David Eugene Smith

... my cousin, what wilt thou call her?" "What thou choosest," answered he. "Then let us call her Num,"[FN75] quoth she, and he said, "Good." The little Num was reared with Er Rebya's son Nimeh in one cradle and each grew up handsomer than the other. They were wont to call each other brother and sister, till they came to the age of ten, when Er Rebya said to Nimeh, "O my son, Num is not thy sister, but thy slave. I bought her in thy name, whilst thou wast yet ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous

... the very error of the moon. She comes more near the earth than she was wont And drives ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield

... the Fronde? If they were as impertinent then, at least they had wit in their levity. We are monkeys in conduct, and as clumsy as bears when we try to gambol. Oh! my lord! I have no patience with my country! and shall leave it without regret!—Can we be proud when all Europe scorns us? It was wont to envy us, sometimes to hate us, but never despised us before. James the First was contemptible, but he did not lose an America! His eldest grandson sold us, his younger lost us—but we kept ourselves. Now we have run to meet the ruin—and ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... their pasture of rye-grass and clover. Having them all before him, therefore no occasion to look behind, he did not see Gibbie approaching. But as soon as he seemed thoroughly occupied, a certain black cow, with short sharp horns and a wicked look, which had been gradually, as was her wont, edging nearer and nearer to the corn, turned suddenly and ran for it, jumped the dyke, and plunging into a mad revelry of greed, tore and devoured with all the haste not merely of one insecure, but of one that knew she was stealing. Now Gibbie had been observant enough during his travels ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... Autolycus; and he describes certain of them with a seasoning of his grotesque humour, to his simple country audience. There were the well-attested tale of the Usurer's Wife, a ballad sung, as ballads are wont, 'to a very doleful tune'—obviously a form of the Supernatural Birth; and the story, true as it is pitiful, of the fish that turned to woman, and then back again to fish, in which he that runs may read an example from ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... Shingle, "wont stand this any longer, by JuJu jupiter! Give over your practicals, Lucifer. Confound it, Don, give over—do, now, you mad long legged son of a gun!"—Here the Don caught Shingle round the waist, and whipping him bodily out of his chair, carried him kicking and ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... were getting on dangerous ground. Nature is a trickster, and she spread her net and caught the Highland maid and the Lowland laddie, and bound them with green withes as is her wont. So they were married by the Congregational "meenister," and for a wedding-tour fared forth Westward to fame and fortune. "Out West" then meant York State, and the "Far West" was Ohio. They reached Oneida ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... own photograph—they were all waiting for the dining-room maid to appear like a black-and-white sketch and crisply announce that dinner was served. They had not arrived yet at having a man. Indeed, that room could still remember when a frowsy, blowsy hired girl was wont to stick her head in and groan, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... It was found that he got much of his material for stories from his older brother who told him of robbers and accidents. From his good father he got the form of his tales, because the father was wont to tell him ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... Was little wont his joy to speak, But then his colour rose. "Now, Scotland! shortly shalt thou see That age checks not McGLADSTONE's glee, Nor stints his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various

... these savages that they considered a favourable journey impossible without this uncouth ceremony. It was at this portage that their enemies had been wont ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... king his father. When he went to the pit, as of his wont, and called the nurse, she returned him no answer, whereat his breast was straitened and he let down a man who [found the nurse dead and the boy gone and] acquainted the king therewith; which when ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... "You wont talk, eh?" the mate snarled, kicking him in the ribs with his heavy boot. "Well, I know some cunnin' little ways of makin' people talk when I want 'em to. But I'm goin' to wait a while before I try 'em on you. I want somebody here to see you cringe ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes

... scornfully—"Is that all? A mere bagatelle! Ferrari, you were wont to be more sensible! What! quarrel with an excellent friend for the sake of a woman who happens to prefer him to you! Ma che! Women are plentiful—friends ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... was the wont of the Great Republic, with a city hung with emblems of mourning, and with the solemn strains of dirge and mass filling the air, out from the great hall of the Palazzo Cornaro, on, across the heavily draped bridge that spanned the Grand Canal ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks

... animate nature, with endless opportunity for observation and experiment on every hand, permits little excuse for such method as is illustrated by "Be prepared to recite on the next three pages in the book, tomorrow, and read experiment 37 so that you wont have to waste any time in getting started ...
— Adequate Preparation for the Teacher of Biological Sciences in Secondary Schools • James Daley McDonald

... linger there yet, and that these ghosts of sound haunt my footsteps as I pace it up and down. I am the more confirmed in this belief, because, of late years, the echoes that attend my walks have been less loud and marked than they were wont to be; and it is pleasanter to imagine in them the rustling of silk brocade, and the light step of some lovely girl, than to recognise in their altered note the failing tread of an ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens

... discover to me, that it was possible I might be more happy even in this solitary condition, than I should have been in the enjoyment of society, and in all the pleasures of the world: that he could fully make up to me the deficiencies of my solitary state, and the wont of human society, by his presence, and the communications of his grace to my soul; supporting, comforting, and encouraging me to depend upon his providence here, and to hope ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... fell, however, to Alexander, as the champion of Hellas against the "barbarians." With an army of less than forty thousand men Alexander destroyed an empire before which, for two centuries, all Asia had been wont to tremble. History, ancient or modern, contains no other record of conquests so widespread, so thorough, so ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... Exod. xxi. 29, "But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death." It could be no excuse ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... his part that evening might be described as filling gaps. He did it admirably. Perhaps he was not to be greatly credited for that, inasmuch as happiness is a great lubricator of the social wheels. He did it, at any rate, easily and coolly too, according to his usual wont. He talked to Dr. Maryland, was affectionate to Prim, amused Mrs. Coles, watched over Wych Hazel and took care of her if ever an emergency in the ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... started for home. We soon lost sight of each other. We travelled a long time so as to make the best of it while the weather was suitable, as we have to keep up a good pace on the food allowance. It wont do to lay up much. One thing since we left Mt. Darwin, we have had weather we could travel in, although we have not seen the sun much of late. We did 13 miles as near as we can guess by the cairns we have passed. We have not got a sledge meter so shall have to go ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... bluster, and then a struggle in the shrubbery, and a thud, and a groan, and then a roar of wind, half drowning the sound of flying footsteps—and then an awful pause, and at last faint groaning, and a bump, as of some poor wounded body falling against the house. At this point we were wont to summon courage and rush out, with the kitchen poker and a candle shapeless with tallow shrouds from the strong draughts. We never could see anything; partly, perhaps, because the candle was always blown out; and when we stood outside it became evident that what we had ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... of about fifty years of age. Report said that in his youth he had been wild, and some of his contemporary commanders in the service were wont to plague him by narrating divers freaks of former days, the recollection of which would create any thing but a smile upon his face. Whether report and the other captains were correct or not in their assertions, Captain Drawlock was in appearance quite ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... passed since his departure, and during that time Miss Woolsworthy had performed all her usual daily duties in their accustomed course. No one could discover that she had been less careful in her household matters than had been her wont, less willing to go among her poor neighbours, or less assiduous in her attentions to her father. But not the less was there a feeling in the minds of those around her that some great change had come upon her. She would sit during ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... book De Iside et Osiride, "But the better and diviner nature consists of three,—that which exists within the Intellect only, and Matter, and that which proceeds from these, which the Greeks call Kosmos; of which three, Plato is wont to call the Intelligible, the 'Idea, Exemplar, and Father'; Matter, 'the Mother, the Nurse, and the place and receptacle of generation'; and the issue of these two, 'the Offspring and Genesis,'" the KOSMOS, "a word ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... African war. His popularity with his officers was due largely to his easy discipline, and to the absence of that rigidity of manner which is supposed to go with high military command, and which civilians are wont to ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... confessedly frightened of the big horse to accomplish such purpose? Tom is at home on a boat, and enjoys outwitting fish and turtle and dugong. However unstable his craft and surly the sea, he keeps calm; but with a tempestuous horse, who was wont to play about on the flat, pawing the air like a tragic actor, and kicking it with devastating viciousness, well—"Look out!" As was the horse, so was the yard designed—big and strong. Some of the posts are one foot in diameter, and four and a half feet in the ground. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... particularly inspiriting one. The jacket, full in the skirts, long in the shoulders, wide in the sleeves and enormous round the neck, would scarcely bear comparison with the neat, tight-fitting garments which the other girl graduates of St. Benet's were wont to patronize. Prissie felt glad she was not attired in it that unfortunate day when she sat in Mrs. Elliot-Smith's drawing-room; and yet— and yet— she knew that the poor, quaint, old-world jacket meant love ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... his hand over his brow, as was his wont when in a reflecting mood; "Nick, I have an important movement in view, in which you can be ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... more than three centuries since. In Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres (1535), under the title "Of the Friar that brayde in his Sermon," the preacher reminds a "poure wydowe" of her ass—all that her husband had left her—which had been devoured by wolves, for so the ass was wont ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... the door, sat down in his high-back chair, and lighted a cigar. After the stir and glow of the store the silence of the room was oppressive, its emptiness chilled, and, unthinking, he put his hand down by the side of his chair and nipped his fingers as he was wont to do when calling General. With an indrawn breath he drew his hand back and put it in his pocket. His Christmas shopping was over. A very unexpected Christmas shopping it had been. In all that city of millions ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher

... Halli and Leikner, whom the Jarl had retained about his person,—fancying that two champions of such great strength and prowess would much acid to his consequence on returning home. In vain. the Jarl warned him that personages of that description were wont to give trouble and become unruly,—nothing would serve but he must needs carry them away with him; nay, if they would but come, they might ask as wages any boon which might be in his power to grant. The bargain accordingly ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... mind if I introduce you as Lord Hyssops do you said the earl as he lit his pipe. You see you are sort of mixed up with the family so it wont matter and ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... whereof the property is to cause the person who inhales its fumes to become clairvoyant, or to dream dreams, whichever the truth may be. It was used for this purpose in the mystical ceremonies of the Kendah religion when under its influence the priestess or oracle of the Ivory Child was wont to announce divine revelations. During her tenure of this office Lady Ragnall was frequently subjected to the spell of the /Taduki/ vapour, and said strange things, some of which I heard with my own ears. Also myself once I experienced ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... either that the events and kings did succeed one another in the order mentioned by the chroniclers, or that what the chroniclers laid down was then taken as the theme of song by the bards, and illuminated and adorned according to their wont. ...
— Early Bardic Literature, Ireland • Standish O'Grady

... Fiesole there are, indeed, olives in plenty and other live trades to keep a town going), it yet exists there in virtue of facts which once upon a time were quite sufficient to bring the world to the spot, and it goes on existing, partly by mere conservative use and wont, no doubt, but partly also because there are houses, churches, mills, and roads all ready built there. Now, a town must always, from a very early period, have existed upon the exact site of Fiesole. ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... subscription for a presentation to the first officer, through whose heroism and determination was checked what promised to be a mad scene of disorder and dismay, such as ensued when the Arctic went down and that "stern, brave mate, Gourlay, whom the sailors were wont to obey" was not there to check the undisciplined rush to the boats. For forty-eight hours and thereafter the first officer modestly declared he had merely done his duty, sir, and no good seaman would have done less. The public ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King

... nephew. M. Mouillard, who has a long standing affection for chambertin, ordered two bottles to begin with. He drank the whole of one and half of the other, eating in proportion, and talked unceasingly and positively at the top of his voice, as his wont was. He told me the story of two of his best actions this year, a judicial separation—my uncle is very strong in judicial separations—and the abduction of a minor. At first I looked out for personal ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... been fully turned on, it is the wont of PUNCHINELLO to descend from his perch on the church, (rhyme,) and roam waywardly and invisibly among the denizens who occupy the dens of The Street. He knows all the ins and outs of the place, and has long been disgustingly familiar with its ups and downs. Gently has he dabbled ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 1, Saturday, April 2, 1870 • Various

... 'walk-around;' Tyson solemnly requested information as to 'Which would you rather do or go by Fort Morgan?' and all agreed they would prefer to 'do.' La Rue Adams repeated the benediction with which the French instructor at the naval academy was wont to greet his boys as they were going into examination: 'Vell, fellows, I hope ve vill do as vell as I hope ve vill do.' Finally, Chief Engineer Williamson suggested an adjournment to the forecastle for a last smoke, and the smoking club went forward; but somehow ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... they at the present suffering under any particular infliction, or smarting under any special sense of injustice. Their healths and digestions were all tolerably good, and the mutual friendship in which they had been wont to rejoice showed ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed

... Hence, because redwood timber-claims were easy to acquire, many men acquired them; but when the lure of greener pastures gripped these men and the necessity for ready money oppressed, they were wont to sell their holdings for a few hundred dollars. Gradually it became the fashion in Humboldt to "unload" redwood timber-claims on thrifty, far-seeing, visionary John Cardigan who appeared to be always in the market for any ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... merucylle he stode. And alweyes his blood fylle from him fast. When Arthur behelde the ground so sore bebledde he was desmayed, and thenne he demed treason that his swerd was chaunged, for his swerd boote not styl[19] as it was wont to do, therefore he dredde hym sore to be dede, for euer hym seemed that the swerd in Accolons hand was Excalibur, for at euery stroke that Accolon stroke he drewe blood on Arthur. Now knyghte, said Accolon unto Arthur, kepe the wel from me, but Arthur ansuered not ageyne, and gat hym ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... attentive fools, by their own example, to put on shoes and stockings, till the apes of imitation, trying to do the like, entangle their feet, and so cannot escape upon the boughs of the tree of liberty, on which before they were wont to hop and skip about, and play ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... it seems that I was perceived, for he who saw me, and now accuses, was doubtless one of the assassins. Happy I, if the sight of a witness scared him from the crime. Either fearing detection, or aware that their intent that night was frustrated—for Pausanias, visiting Cleonice earlier than his wont, had already resought his galley—the men retreated as they came, unseen, not unheard. I caught their receding steps through the brushwood. Greeks, I have said. Who is my accuser? in him behold the would-be ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... day was not particularly onerous. Dr Ringwood, the head-master, held a sort of reception of the Sixth, and delivered, as was his wont, a little lecture on the work to be taken up during the ensuing half, interspersed with a few sarcastic references to the work of the previous half, and one or two jokes, which scoffers like Ridgway used to say must have cost him many serious hours ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... tincture of a learned education."[242] The pacification of civic troubles in 1738 was followed by a quarter of a century of extreme prosperity and contentment, and it is in such periods that the minds of men previously trained are wont to turn to the great matters of speculation. There was at all times a constant communication, both public and private, going on between Geneva and Holland, as was only natural between the two chief Protestant centres of the Continent. The controversy of the seventeenth century between the two churches ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... as he afterwards looked back upon it, he could not feel that there had been any lack. He had fancied himself, in prospect, sitting beside her at the table, exchanging that pleasant, half-foolish badinage with which young men are wont to entertain girls who are their companions at dinners, both nearly oblivious of the rest of the company. But it turned out that his seat was between his hostess and her younger daughter, Ruth, and though Roberta was nearly opposite him at the table and he could look at her to his full ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... a momentary dream I had; and the thought of its utter impossibility caused me to shrug. I assure your highness that it was a philosophical shrug, such as the Stoics were wont to indulge in." He spoke lightly. ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... had gone into the deep woods to study and pray, as was the wont of the forest preachers. Here he had prayerfully and carefully completed the outline of his sermon. Then a great burden of unfitness and helplessness came upon him. Like his Master he threw himself prone upon the ground and poured out his soul to the Father. "O God," ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick

... occasion of Gabe's spring trip he encountered a statuesque blonde person where Effie had been wont to reign. ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... STUDIES:—Here Milton appears decidedly as an innovator, but yet with a curious mixture of what would now be called rank Conservatism. The innovation consists in a total departure from the use and wont of his time, in respect of the nature of the studies to be pursued and the order in which they should be taken. There was to be an end of that wretched torture of Latin and Greek theme-making and ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... a day as we were wont to live, But Nature had a robe of glory on, And the bright air o'er every shape did weave Intenser hues, so that the herbless stone, The leafless bough among the leaves alone, 1130 Had being clearer than ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... poor guest was still in bed, my servant Hannah came to advise me that two persons were without, waiting to see me. As is my wont, I bade them be shown in. On their entrance (two rough, farmer-looking men they were, who I thought might be coming to hire my little pasture field), I prayed them to speak low, as a sick gentleman was just overhead. Whereupon, and without saying a word further, the ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... germinated, even as a seed when planted in the ground at last grows upward into the light and air. Now, that the entire work should not be too much finished or quite completed, and to leave room for after-thoughts or possible improvements, he was wont, as he said, to give the Will some leeway, or freedom; which is the same thing as if, before going to sleep, we Will or determine that on the following day our Imagination, or Creative Force, or Inventive Genius, shall be unusually active, which will come to pass after some small practice ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland

... not been shooting crackers on the banquette instead of peering into the crack, as was his wont, his big, round, black eyes would have grown saucer-wide to see little Miss Sophie kiss and fondle a ring, an ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... employed to represent the tree of life. It was the palm, the tree that furnished the majority of the inhabitants of the district with food, and with fruit from which they distilled a fermented and intoxicating liquor, a kind of wine; the tree to which they were wont to attribute in a popular song as many benefits as there are days in the year—this palm it was that was there considered the sacred, the paradisiacal tree. We have the proof of this in cylinders that show us the palm surmounted by the emblem of the Supreme God, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... he persisted in doing that which his son—and his daughters—and friends—prophesied would kill him some time or other, and did, at last. The Major had three little iron guns, mounted on carriages, on a terrace in front of his house; and it was his wont to fire a salute on certain festival days from these guns, which, from age and exposure to the weather, became dangerous to use. It was in vain that this danger was represented to him. He would reply, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... Fielding's time, as he was only a year older, and was intimate with Lyttelton. Thomas Augustine Arne, again, famous in days to come as Dr. Arne, was doubtless also at this date practising sedulously upon that "miserable cracked common flute," with which tradition avers he was wont to torment his school-fellows. Gray and Horace Walpole belong to a ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... forget. Indeed he described the glorious action at Bunker's Hill, as though he had been one of the combatants. His agitation was great, his voice became altered and broken; and his face kindled over with that living fire with which it was wont to burn, when he entered the battles of his country. I arose from my seat as he spoke; and on recovering from the magic of his tongue, found myself bending forward to the voice of my friend, and my right hand stretched by my side; it was stretched to my side for the ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... young fellow disappeared, Bill looked again at the shifting crowd upon which his eyes were wont to rest with the speculative gaze of a farmer who leans upon the fence that bounds his land, and regards his wheat-fields ripening for the sickle. He liked Jack, and the soul of him was bitter with the bitterness that is the portion of maturity, when it must stand by and see youth learn by ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... sparkling toy at her elbow on the table, and stared in her face. 'T is certain his Grace had dined. He was not wont to treat any woman thus unless where it was asked for. A minute went by—the tick was audible, but she moved not. And now a slow hot tear scorched its way down her cheek. If this followed mama's instruction, it bettered it. The tune was scarce out when he springs ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... pathetic little gesture that showed how completely absent her mind was from the room in which she sat. Then her hand fell idle, and she became very still, a crumpled, tragic, hopeless look rounding the shoulders that were wont to hold themselves so ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... the Hours are breathing low, The sands of Time are changed to golden grains, And dazzle me, Baldazzar. Alas! alas! I cannot die, having within my heart So keen a relish for the beautiful As hath been kindled within it. Methinks the air Is balmier now than it was wont to be— Rich melodies are floating in the winds— A rarer loveliness bedecks the earth— And with a holier lustre the quiet moon Sitteth in Heaven.—Hist! hist! thou canst not say Thou ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... even in the Lord's temple. It is, you say, your right. You are doing an act of terrible justice. But why then, so many vigorous arms to make an end of one dying man? Why these outcries? this fury? this violence? Is it thus that the people, the strong and equitable people, are wont to execute their judgments? No, no; when sure of their right, they strike their enemies, it is with the calmness of the judge, who, in freedom of soul and conscience, passes sentence. No, the strong and equitable ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... to me, Speak from thy silent grave; It doth not roll o'er thee, Death's dark and Stygian wave! Sweet! speak, I'm sick, to hear The heaven of thy voice, Which wont, while life was dear, ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... from a long golfing match, broke upon one of these meditative fits, and was a little surprised to find that the earl did not rouse himself out of it quite so readily as was his wont; also that the endless college stories, which he always liked so much to listen to, fell rather blank, and did not meet Lord Cairnforth's hearty laugh, as gay as that of a young fellow could share ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... I happened to be looking at Cookie, who was setting down a dish before Mr. Tubbs. The negro started visibly, and rolled his eyes at Captain Magnus with astonishment depicted in every dusky feature. He said nothing, although wont to take part in our conversation as it suited him, but I saw him shake his great grizzled head in a disturbed and puzzled fashion as he ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon

... made; And whiteness had o'erspread that hemisphere, Blackness the other part; when to the left I saw Beatrice turn'd, and on the sun Gazing, as never eagle fix'd his ken. As from the first a second beam is wont To issue, and reflected upwards rise, E'en as a pilgrim bent on his return, So of her act, that through the eyesight pass'd Into my fancy, mine was form'd; and straight, Beyond our mortal wont, I fix'd mine eyes Upon the sun. Much is allowed us there, That here ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... side O'er-browed a grassy mead, And fenced a cottage from the wind, A deer was wont ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various

... which Ivan gained his first understanding of the art that he was to make his own, was one that had come into the palace upon the marriage of his mother. In the days before the complete stifling of her talents, Sophia had been wont often to dissipate the misery of her earlier disillusions in music. But there arrived a time when grief became too deep for such sentimental balm; and then the piano's painted cover had been closed, ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... scarlet ranks of the geraniums, are standing at "attention" to welcome this morning inspection by the ruler and commander-in-chief of all the world of flowers. The inspecting officers, rather late as inspecting officers are wont to be, are overhauling and examining the flowers. These inspectors, also roused by the sun, are the butterflies and bees. Splendid red admirals are flying up, and alighting on the sunflowers, or hovering over the pink masses of valerian. Peacock butterflies, "eyed" like Emperors' robes, open ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... marriage of his daughter but eighteen months; yet that was sufficient time to become attached to his invaluable son-in-law. Mr. Ives insensibly led the admiral, during his long indisposition, to a more correct view of sacred things, than he had been wont to entertain; and the old man breathed his last, blessing both his children for their kindness, and with an humble hope of future happiness. Some time before his death, Isabel, whose conscience had always reproached her with the ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... Mrs Walford was wont to assert, just about this time, that Lucy was the very living picture of what she herself used to be when a girl. If this was indeed true, it was at once an evidence of that remarkable good taste which the late "cap'n" was ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... deplorable fact is used as evidence for the purpose of showing that Judaism itself contains within it a destructive force, and is, therefore, doubly dangerous to State and society. The Jewish progressives and socialists are wont to speak of their mission to reconstruct the world and of their innate love of mankind.... These statements need hardly be taken seriously, for present-day Jewry, by the very essence of its nature, professes strictly conservative principles, which ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... divine-human Man, and so utterly are the old ties and bonds unaffected by it, that when He meets His followers, all He has to say to them as His first greeting is, 'Peace be unto you!'—the well-worn salutation that was bandied to and fro in every market-place and scene where men were wont to meet. Thus He indicates the divine tranquillity of His nature; thus He minimises the fact of death; thus He reduces it to its true insignificance as a parenthesis across which may pass unaffected all sweet familiarities and loving friendships; ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... was some trap set for him outside—indeed, the noises he had been listening to for more than an hour, must have admonished him that all was not as it ought to be; and this perhaps rendered him more wary than was his wont. He might not yet be aware that his door was open; for the roofed enclosure still kept out the light as much as the stalagmite had done; and although he might have heard the icy mass giving way before the axe and spear, ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid

... friends called it firmness, his enemies obstinacy; a seeming disregard of what others might think of him; a certain sternness of manner—an unreadiness, as it were, to open his door to the people about him; a searching regard with which he was wont to peruse the face of anyone holding talk with him, when he seemed always to give heed to the looks rather than the words of him who spoke; these peculiarities had combined to produce a certain awe of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... them to be men, in whom, nevertheless, he worshipped God, as God is wont to be in the prophets, as Augustine says (De Civ. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... we sallied forth, according to our usual wont, to see as much as we could of the town and its environs; both invited a longer stay, but we were anxious to be at Marseilles by the 19th, and therefore agreed to rise at half-past three on the following morning, ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts

... vivid green, known as Antone Meadows. It was named after a Switzer who lived there years ago and whose children now own it. Not far away is Round Meadow, locally known as Bear-Trap Meadow, for one may still find there an old bear-trap that hunters were wont to use thirty or forty years ago. In this meadow is the cabin of the Forest Ranger, which we shall see ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... girl seemed to be turning the thing over in her mind, as was her wont with any new proposition, "there seem to be in history a good many women who ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... variations of temperature during the summers; but the temperature would not have troubled him had he not been hard hit before he went to Berkshire. He got out of patience with the climate, and was wont to anathematize it with humorous extravagance, as his way was: "It is horrible. One knows not for ten minutes together whether he is too cool or too warm. I detest it! I hate Berkshire with my whole soul. Here, where I had hoped for perfect health, I have ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne

... yards from the house, overlooking on one side the willow-draped waters of Occoquan Inlet, and on the other the broad and placid river, a seat had been fashioned between two massive oaks, and here, of an evening, it was our wont to go. Sometimes, by great good fortune, James did not accompany us, and Dorothy and I would sit there alone together and watch the shadows deepen across the water. Our talk would falter and die away before the beauty of the scene, and there would be long silences, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... and Pesaro was a link that bound us together, and caused her to see under my motley and my masking smile the true Lazzaro Biancomonte whom for a little season she had known. And when we were alone it had become her wont to call me Lazzaro, leaving that other name that they had given me for use when others were at hand. Yet never did she refer to my condition, or wound me by seeking to spur me to the ambition to become myself again. Haply she was content that I should be as ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... had selected another arm of the service. Her hair was fair; her eyes blue, laughing, languishing,—mischief-loving blue, with long lashes, and a look in them that was wont to leave its impression rather longer than you exactly knew of; then, her figure was petite, but perfect; her feet Canova might have copied; and her hand was a study for Titian; her voice, too, was soft and musical, but full of that gaiete de coeur that never fails to charm. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... "No you wont, you'll start NOW; and don't you lose any time about it, neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in your head and move right along, and then you won't get into ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... contrary many arguments and probabilities impugning the discourse concerning divine punishments, as nothing differing from the tales of Acco and Alphito (or Raw-Head and Bloody-Bones), with which women are wont to frighten little children from their unlucky pranks. Having thus traduced Plato, he in other places again praises him, and often alleges ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... up under her eye, sheltered by her care, in the sunshine of her love. To take care of her, to deny herself, and bear the severest fatigue for her had been her pleasure; and now as she appealed to her father—as she wont to do—as if he were present, and asked him in an inaudible cry: "Tell me, have I not done all for her that I could do?" and said to herself that he could not possibly answer her appeal but with assent, her eyes filled with tears; the bitterness and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... met his ear or eye, though the next minute he was the first to laugh at his own weakness. In Hector, the feeling was of a graver, more solemn cast, recalling to his mind all the wild and wondrous tales with which his father was wont to entertain the children, as they crouched round the huge log-fire of an evening. It is strange the charm these marvellous tales possess for the youthful mind, no matter how improbable, or how often told; year after year they will be listened to with the same ardour, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... on murdered Lincoln's bier, You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, His length of shambling ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... gray mist, gray sky: Through vapors hurrying by, Larger than wont, on high Floats the horned, yellow moon. Chill airs are faintly stirred, And far away is heard, Of some fresh-awakened ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... had nothing to add to these horrors; yet such was my frame of mind that I found a certain bitter gladness in listening to the telling of them, and in tracing between them and our own case the ghastly parallel. In our talk, which wont on in English, Fray Antonio took no part; but he could follow well enough the meaning of it in our tones. On his face was an expression of tender melancholy that seemed to me to tell of sorrow for us rather ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier



Words linked to "Wont" :   habit, custom, wont to, tradition



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