"Wont" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... truly: as convenient every whit as that of Daniel Burgess, a witty Presbyterian minister, devoted to the House of Brunswick and the principles of the Revolution, who was wont to affirm, as the reason the descendants of Jacob were called Israelites, and did not receive the original name of their progenitor, that Heaven was unwilling they should bear a name in every way so odious as ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 439 - Volume 17, New Series, May 29, 1852 • Various
... the apathy of grief. Suddenly she gave a start and threw back her head. Then she rose from her seat, and, like Maria Theresa, began to pace the apartment. Gradually her face resumed its usual expression, and her demeanor became, as it was wont to be, dignified and graceful. Coming directly up to Madame de Campan, she smiled and gave her hand. "Good Campan," said she, "you have seen me in a moment of weakness, of which I am truly ashamed. Try to forget ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... visit his friend in the olden days he was wont to shed from him that mantle of rebellious pride with which, during the exercise of his duties in Rome, he always hid his real personality. People said of the praefect that he was sullen and morose, merciless in ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... by one passed away, and left thee to journey on in loneliness of heart, when the light of thine own eye shall have become dimmed, and thy sunny hair whitened by the frosts of age—when thy voice, which was wont to gush forth in melody and song, entrancing the ear and cheering the heart of the listener, has become weak and tremulous, and care and sorrow have set their seal upon thy brow. Oh, then may the ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... The Germans are wont to annoy a garrison with the smoke of feathers, sulphur and realgar, and they make this smoke last 7 or 8 hours. Likewise the husks of wheat make a great and lasting smoke; and also dry dung; but this must be mixed with olive husks, that is olives pressed for oil and from which the oil ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... get them. Which, being translated, is this—The same spirit of daring enterprise, which is a condition of success in secular matters, is no less potent a factor in the success of Christian men in their enterprises for Jesus Christ. As long as we keep Him down, within the limits of use and wont, and are horribly afraid of anything that our great-grandfathers did not use to do, there will be very few fish in the bottom of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... she paused outside Augustine's door and listened. She heard him move inside, walking to his window, to lean out into the night, probably, as was his wont. That was well. He, ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... which this proud tyrant had in mind as a return for the many good works and kind treatment which he had always received from the governor and from each one of the Spaniards of his company; which recompense, according to his intention, was to have been of the sort he was wont to give to the caciques and lords of the land, ordering [his men] to kill without let or cause whatever. For it chanced that our discharged soldiers [were] returning to Spain, he, seeing that they were taking with them the gold that had been got from his land, and mindful of the ...
— An Account of the Conquest of Peru • Pedro Sancho
... living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed,— Its irised ceiling rent, its ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... 15th.—I hastened to the spot where I was wont to find him, with the newspaper which I was to read to him. But instead I found Mrs. MONSON, Miss BALDWIN, and Mr. BULMAN, from Leeds, the grandson of my brother's earliest acquaintance in this country. I was informed my brother had been obliged to return to his room, whither ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... Jack, I think that Uncle Sam has a great deal to answer for on that tack; and I can say, too, that the love of rum that I acquired in the government service had pretty nearly fixed my flint, both for this world and the next. But still, Jack, it wont do for seamen to drink grog because the government supplies it, and think to excuse themselves by blaming it. No, no; that is a poor excuse. Men who brave the dangers of the mighty deep, as our class do, and face death in every form with unshrinking courage, ought to be able ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... in his voice, whether it was possible that Harrow School was disgraced by so disreputably dirty a boy as I! Oh, what I felt at that moment! But I could not look my feelings. I do not doubt that I was dirty;—but I think that he was cruel. 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 he did not recognise me ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... because Cai (who walked in front) measured but an inch above five feet, whereas Scipio stood six feet three in his socks, the Major had a seat contrived with a sharp backward slope, and two wooden buffers against which he thrust his feet when going down-hill. Besides these, whom he was wont to call, somewhat illogically, his two factotums, his household comprised Miss Marty and a girl Lavinia who, as Miss Marty put it, did odds and ends. Miss Marty was a poor relation, a third or fourth cousin on the maternal side, whom the ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... white sale.... At the very least, they would be glad to give her an excellent recommendation, the buyer told her. More distraught than one stunned by utter hopelessness and ruin, she came home and, as Father had once been wont to do for her, she made her face ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... round to the Delands. He felt a little nervous as he reached the house. It seemed an unconscionable time since he was last here. When the butler opened the door he felt an insane desire to say, "Good evening, Jessop! You're still here, then." Such a decade ago it seemed since Jessop had been wont to admit him without question and ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... down they went to the river's brim, Where their feathered friends were wont to swim, And there on the turf so green and deep The ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... jump from the first floor window on the top of the bow-window of the parlor, and stand there. The Raven, though a comfortable, old established, and respectable inn, could boast only of casements for its upper windows, and they are not convenient to deliver speeches from. He was wont, therefore to take his seat on the bow-window, and, that was not altogether convenient either, for it was but narrow, and he hardly dared move an arm or a leg for fear of pitching over on the upturned faces. Mr. Drake let himself down also, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... vigilance was great. Whether he noted any sign of slackness or indifference on the part of his coadjutors or not, of course I cannot say, but he certainly seemed to put more vigour into his attentions than had been his wont, and so kept everybody up to ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... respects, it was hardly sufficient to maintain his position with that plentiful hospitality which he would have loved;—and other property he had none. And as to his rank, he had almost become ashamed of it, since,—as he was wont to declare was now the case,—every prosperous tallow-chandler throughout the country was made a baronet as a matter of course. So he lived at home through the year with his wife and daughters, not pretending to the luxury of a season in London for which his modest three or four thousand a year ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... accord united in a grand ovation to do him honor, not as a partisan leader, but as a pillar and hope of the Republic in its day of mortal peril. If what I have written shall induce but even a few candid men to think better of the departed DOUGLAS, as a statesman and patriot, than they were wont to think, I will be more than rewarded for my own labor in his vindication. But I have other ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... stranger to a Japanese house, in which there is not only a Shinto shelf but a Buddhist shrine—where the name plates of the dead for several generations are treasured—cannot but feel that, when all allowances are made for the dulling influences of use and wont, the plan is a means of taking the minds of the household beyond the daily round. The fact that there is a certain familiarity with the things of the shrine and of the Shinto shelf, just as there is a certain freedom at the public shrines and in the temple, does not destroy ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... and figure. She would have preferred a pirate; but Patching's enormous hat gave him a freebooterish appearance, which went far to reconcile her to him. She was really a pretty woman—much handsomer than some of the shadowy beauties Patching was wont to put on canvas—and she made him a good and faithful wife—and cooked better dinners for him, at a small expense, than he had ever eaten before—and sent him out into the world clean and tidy every morning. Patching affected to be ashamed of his wife, and snubbed her sometimes in the presence ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... make it the worse for them, to wit, that he would have them beaten. So Thorleif when he heard this shouted to his men to slip their cables, and this they did according to his word; then did Skopti lie-to in the berth he was wont to have, nearest the Earl's ship. Now Skopti was called Tidings Skopti, & this had come about seeing that it had been agreed that when they were together he was to make known to the Earl all the tidings, ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... 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
... might be cast off the next week. If he were like Ulysses in his folly, at least she was in so far like Penelope that she had a crowd of suitors, and undid day after day and night after night the handiwork of fascination and the web of coquetry with which she was wont to allure and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... said; and, rising at the word, he threw Two pond'rous gauntlets down in open view; Gauntlets which Eryx wont in fight to wield, And sheathe his hands with in the listed field. With fear and wonder seiz'd, the crowd beholds The gloves of death, with sev'n distinguish'd folds Of tough bull hides; the space within is spread With iron, or with loads of heavy lead: Dares himself ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... hesitation rather than as a repetition. He used, after a slight pause, to bring out a word with a deliberate emphasis, but it never appeared to suspend the thread of his talk. I remember an occasion, as a young man, when he took sherry, contrary to his wont, through some dinner-party; and when asked why he had done this, he said that it happened to be the only liquid the name of which he was able to pronounce on that evening. He used to feel humiliated by it, and I have heard him say, "I'm sorry—I'm stammering ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... was conducted at once to the study in which Mr. Bookam was wont to indulge in various nefarious Stock Exchange adventures. The room was occupied on this occasion by a dejected-looking young man, with pasty face and gold spectacles. The apartment, as Fischer was quick to notice, showed ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is a dear jewel for men whose days are spent in the tedious this-and-that of trade. Roger was a glutton for his midnight musings. To such tried companions as Robert Burton and George Herbert he was wont to exonerate his spirit. It used to amuse him to think of Burton, the lonely Oxford scholar, writing that vast book to "rectify" ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... of her eyes were not to be seen. Alessandro's tall figure and dignified bearing were not uncommon. The Father had seen many as fine-looking Indian men. But his voice was remarkable, and he spoke better Spanish than was wont to ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... last to escape these gloomy thoughts. Alves followed him without a word. He did not offer her his arm, as he was wont to do when they walked out here beyond the paths where people came. She respected his mood, and falling a step behind, followed the winding road that led around the ruined Court of Honor to the esplanade. As they gained the road by a little footpath ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... back though it sure looked like I wasn't going to but you never can tell and as old Buck Byington says its a hell of a long road without no bend in it and which you can bet your boots the old alkali is right at that. Well I found the little pie-eater in Denver O K but so gaunt he wont hardly throw a shadow and what can you expect of scalawags like Miller and Doble who don't know how to treat a horse. Well I run Chiquito off right under their noses and we had a little gun play and made my getaway and I reckon I will stay a spell and work here. Well good ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... with beaks, claws and feathers. Such deeds are sternly reprobated as savagery; still, they occur, and nearly always as the result of wagers. I wish I could couple them with equally heroic achievements in the drinking line, but, alas! I have only heard of one old man who was wont habitually to en-gulph twenty-two litres of wine a day; eight are spoken of as "almost too much" in these ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... The long low ruffle of the drums!— And every head is bowed, In the vast expectant crowd, As the Great Queen comes,— By the way she knew so well, Where our cheers were wont to swell, As we tried in vain to tell Of our love unspeakable. Now she comes To the rolling of the drums, And the slow sad tolling of the bell. Let every head be bowed, In the silent waiting crowd, As the Great Queen comes, To the slow ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... subjecting all sections of politicians in their turn to official responsibilities, it obliges heated partisans to place some restraint on passion, and to confine within the bounds of decency the patriotic zeal with which, when out of place, they are wont to be animated. In order, however, to secure these advantages, it is indispensable that the head of the Government should show that he has confidence in the loyalty of all the influential parties with which he has to deal, and that he should have no personal antipathies ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... "It wont do to go near him," he said. "—But you needn't be afraid; he can't touch you. That iron band round his ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... miles beyond Gwelo there is a mountain called Iron Mine Hill, where the Mashonas have for generations been wont to find and work iron. All or nearly all the Kafir tribes do this, but the Mashonas are more skilful at it than were their conquerors the Matabili. Here a track turns off to the south-east to Fort Victoria, the first military post established by the Company in ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... the increased action of their pulses began to calm down again; for instead of standing up according to his wont and giving a few short, sharp orders, the colonel, after turning towards the orderly and hearing him out, merely raised ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... Boyd fell back farther, the others rushed in and he found himself hard beset. What happened thereafter neither he nor Alton Clyde, who was half- dazed to begin with, ever clearly remembered, for in such over-charged instants the mental photograph is wont to be either unusually distinct or else fogged to such a blur that only the high-lights stand ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... acknowledged fact, making his best efforts in their service. Now he is capable of going through life with hardly any positive idea on this subject,—doubting, fearing, suspecting, analyzing,—doing everything, in fact, but believing; hardly ever getting quite up to that point which hitherto was wont to be the starting-point for all generations. And human work has accordingly hardly any reference to spiritual beings, but is done either from a patriotic or personal interest,—either to benefit mankind, or reach some selfish ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... the Treasury's marble front Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations; Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont To throng for trade and last quotations; Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold Outrival, in the ears of people, The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... to the almshouse across the water. The cause of Mr. Benny's dismissal had been freely canvassed and narrowly guessed at. Against this new stroke of tyranny the public revolted. Living so far from their own church and a mile from the nearest chapel, numbers of the villagers were wont on Sundays to cross over to the town for their religion, and to-day with one consent they stepped into Nicky's blue boat, while Mr. Bobe smoked and spat, and regarded them with a lazy interest. Towards evening the old man ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... modestly back from the highway, and the yard about the front door, enclosed by a once white picket fence, was filled with the fragrance of cinnamon roses and syringas. As they drove up at the side of the house across the open lawn, the close cropping of which showed that the cows were wont to take their final bite upon it as they came to the yard at night, they encountered an elderly man carrying a large jug in one hand and apparently just starting for the fields with some refreshing drink for ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... Goldsborough that night with an elated spirit, seeing in herself the future hostess of the fashionable throng there assembled. Instead of standing in a corner, listening with unctuous deference or sympathy to any who chanced to come against her, as was her wont, proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field of action, nodding and smiling at the young men to whom she might have been at some time introduced; whispering and jesting with some marked ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... more and more to aggravate them. The loss of her cheerful society tended also to depress his spirits; and in order to dispel the gloom, which often crept upon his mind after his daily occupations were over, he was wont frequently to ask Schalken to accompany him home, and ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... said she kindly smiling, 'as you may perceive, forget the name of one whose society I prized so highly; but if 'Lady Greville' will pardon my inadvertence, and oblige me by singing one of those airs with which she was wont formerly to charm me to sleep when I suffered either mental or bodily affliction, I will in turn forgive you, my lord, for robbing me of ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... heretofore, of the necessity of education to the mass of the population, with earnest discussions of its scope and methods by both speculative and practical men; in schemes, more speedily animated into operation than good designs were wont to be, for spreading useful knowledge over tracts of the dead waste where there was none; in exciting tens of thousands of young persons to a benevolent and patient activity in the instruction of the children of the poor; in an extended and ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... eyes, scanning the apathetic, stubborn maternal countenance, hardened beyond their wont. "You talk as if there had been some class war declared," she said, with obvious annoyance. "You know that Uncle Stormont would like nothing better than to be as nice to you ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... bone and flesh of our flesh,' and bearing a heart thrilling with all innocent human emotions that divine Saviour was? We, too, have known what it is to feel, because of approaching separation from dear ones, the need for a tenderer tenderness. At such moments the masks of use and wont drop away, and we are eager to find some word, to put our whole souls into some look, our whole strength into one clinging embrace that may express all our love, and may be a joy to two hearts for ever after to remember. The Master knew that longing, and felt ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... not do it in a rage, as Susy did." "You did mischief, though," said Sarah; "but I want Susy to give over going into these rages. I want to cure her. Beating her does no good, mother says that herself; wont you all try ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... Constitution, and had declared that it should not be allowed to stand in the way of doing those things which, in their opinion, ought to be done. Their great warrior, the chieftain of their forces in the House of Representatives, Thaddeus Stevens, was wont to say, in his defiant iconoclastic style, that there was no longer any Constitution, and that he was weary of hearing this "never-ending gabble about the sacredness of the Constitution." Yet somewhat inconsistently these same men held ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... be sure, and that was right. They did their duty: though for sartin, if a poor man can't pay his debts when he's at liberty, he wont be much nearer the mark when he's shut up in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... and active. Of all the race with whom I have communicated, his manners were the most pleasing. There was a polish in them, a freedom and grace that would have befitted a drawing-room. It was his wont to visit my tent every day at noon, and to sleep during the heat; but he invariably asked permission to do this before he composed himself to rest, and generally laid down at my feet. Differing from the majority of the natives, he never ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... live with the old woman her young and beautiful and very lovely granddaughter. And one day—it was not so long afterward—the very lovely girl, rummaging about the great house, came upon a tall mirror, the mirror that the withered and bitter old woman had long been wont to use and that for all these many lonely years had seen and reflected naught but acrimony and decay and despair and ugliness. And the very lovely girl looked into the mirror—and suddenly cried out. For what the mirror reflected was not her ...
— A Book Without A Title • George Jean Nathan
... of moderate elevation, stands on a tongue of land that projects from the coast between the south of Palestine and Egypt. It is washed on the north by the sea which, on this day, is not gleaming, as is its wont, in translucent ultramarine; its more distant depths slowly surge in blue-black waves, while those nearer to shore are of quite a different hue, and meet their sisters that lie nearer to the horizon in a dull greenish-grey, as dusty plains join darker lava beds. The northeasterly wind, which had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... December, 1833, a great loss to that young institution, which was contemplating this noble young woman as its future Mother Superior. Her seminary in Georgetown averaged from thirty to thirty-five pupils, and there are those living who remember the troop of girls, dressed uniformly, which was wont to follow in procession their pious and refined teacher to devotions on the Sabbath at Holy Trinity Church. The school comprised girls from the best Colored families of Georgetown, Washington, Alexandria, and surrounding country. The sisters of the Georgetown convent were the admirers ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... could not understand the boldness of her brother's criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under their thick, bushy eyebrows ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... was the clearest, whitest night I ever saw. I turned aside into the garden, meaning to cross it, and take the short way over the west meadow home. There was a long walk of rose bushes leading across the garden to a little gate on the further side ... the way Mr. Lawrence had been wont to take long ago when he went over the fields to woo Margaret. I went along it, enjoying the night. The bushes were white with roses, and the ground under my feet was all snowed over with their petals. The air was still and breezeless; again ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... lately, nor knew at what time he went away, or if he had attained the end he sought. My mistress busied me mostly in the lower part of the house, and went out very little herself, keeping on me all the while a strict guard and surveillance beyond her wont. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... is a fair-flowing stream, and there, with an arrow from his strong bow, did the Prince, the son of Zeus, slay the Dragoness, mighty and huge, a wild Etin, that was wont to wreak many woes on earthly men, on themselves, and their straight-stepping flocks, so dread ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... visited his son's palace. When his son came forth for to meet him, instead of kissing him, as was his wont, the father put on a show of distress and anger, and entered the royal chamber, and there sat down frowning. Then calling to his son, he said, "Child, what is this report that soundeth in mine ears, and weareth away my soul with despondency? Never, I ween, was man more filled ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... have been discovering that vast numbers of our farming population live in a poverty more abject than that of many of the farmers of Europe whom we are wont to call peasants; that the prices of our products of agriculture are too often dependent on speculation by non-farming groups; and that foreign nations, eager to become self-sustaining or ready to put virgin land under the plough are no longer buying our surpluses of cotton ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... himself records, "expressed his approbation of my doctrines." The young reformer must needs stand up and make public profession of his new faith and of his agreement with the anti-slavery principles of the older. But it was altogether different with the assembled ministers. Lundy, as was his wont on such occasions, desired and urged the formation of an anti-slavery society, but these sons of Eli of that generation were not willing to offend their slave-holding brethren in the South. Eyes they had, but they refused to see; ears, which they stopped ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... extensive; New England cleared and built as occasion demanded; New France merely established bases from which to penetrate the wilderness. Before the death of Champlain, the white crosses which her pioneers were wont to set up were to be found as far west as Lake Huron, and before the close of the seventeenth century they dotted the trackless forests from Michillimackinac to New Orleans. It is not surprising, then, that ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... particular morning Macfarlane arrived somewhat earlier than his wont. Fettes heard him, and met him on the stairs, told him his story, and showed him the cause of his alarm. Macfarlane examined the marks ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and wondering which of the open windows was nearest to her. He flinched with shame when he recollected himself before other houses gazing at other windows, and he unpursed his lips that were wont to whistle a signal, and went down the street shuddering. Then after an impulse in which some good angel of remorse shook his teeth to rouse his soul, he lifted his face to the sky and would have cried in his heart for help, but instead he smiled and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... side of the earth, close to the stream of Ocean, dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were named the Aethiopians. The gods favored them so highly that they were wont to leave at times their Olympian abodes and go to share their ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... with his own volume before him, is supervising the work. He turns to the translator with an encouraging smile, and seems to dictate the words. St. Matthew's face is gentle and amiable, though not so strong as we are wont to imagine it. He is here represented in middle life, at about the ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... it and through it, And lived long enough, the baldpate, to rue it. Tho' shallow it is, yet the bravest and best By keeping it give of their wisdom a test. And the hotter it gets in dispute, yet the most Courageous is he who wont let it be crossed. On the whole, though 't is often a subject of strife, More people it joins than it parts in this life. My whole is a place I forbear now to flatter; It thrives upon those whose dearest and best Severely it tries, yet makes light of the matter, And thinks the ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... policy was, however, already so marked that Lord Melbourne—now his 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 ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... colour, unable to arrest the mounting tide. She had been rowing, she said; and, as he directed his eyes, according to his wont, penetratingly, she defended herself by fixing her mind on Robinson Crusoe's old goat in the recess ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "I was wont to share your father's counsels, my son," she said; "but do not think that I wish to intrude myself upon yours. I am too well pleased to see you assume the power and the duty of thinking for yourself, which is what I ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... as the hills on which his sheep fed. He was ready at all times either to shake hands or to break a head—to give or to take. No one ever entered his house and went out hungry. He had a bed, a bite, and a bottle for every one; and he was wont to say that he would rather treat a beggar than lose good company. He was no respecter of rank, nor did he understand much concerning it. He judged of the respect due to every one by what he called the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... her creed, and just a little flushed with the unwonted excitement, attracted universal homage. Around stood several bishops, peers, and peeresses; the hall was filled with spectators, while outside the crowd surged and swayed as crowds are wont to do. For a few moments the two women spoke together; then the strict rules of etiquette were overcome by the enthusiasm of the assembly and a murmur of applause, followed by a ringing English cheer, went up. This cheer was repeated by the crowd outside, again ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... gained by it. His rhyming jests, his quatrains, couplets, acrostics, epigrams, and songs, which were sometimes rather risky, though they had a certain coarsely witty quality, were often quoted. He was wont to sing the mysteries of digestion: the Muse of the Loire districts is fain to blow her trumpet like the famous devil ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... carved out of the living rock, but so much detached from it that only two slender ties remained to connect it with the vast mass of which it had once formed a part. It stood on a high platform, with a large bowl before it, in which the offerings of worshippers, I conclude, were once wont to be deposited. On either side huge pillars rose to support the roof which once covered it. Altogether, the mighty figure and the surrounding edifices were more like what I should have expected to have seen in Egypt or ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... are folish & senseles persons.] Varro writeth, that Scipio was wont to say, that there was no difference at all betweene a furious, outragious, or mad man and a daunser, sauing that this man, that is to say, the daunser was then onely mad when he daunsed, and the other was so all his life long. From thence commeth the Latine prouerbe, ...
— A Treatise Of Daunses • Anonymous
... Then England would become again, what she was for over a thousand years, viz.: "the most faithful daughter of the Church of Rome, and of His Holiness, the one Sovereign Pontiff and Vicar of Christ upon earth," as our Catholic forefathers were wont to describe her. ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... assumed—the once brilliant Chevalier d'Orrain. Pierrebon alone knew my secret, and he was as silent as the grave. At times the honest fellow would speak hopefully of a good day to come; but I poured cold water on that, and, pointing to my lute and my copy of "Plutarch's Lives," was wont to say that there was enough happiness there for my life without seeking to reopen the past or delve into ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... I saw him seated in the portico of Zeus Eleutherios, [1] and as he appeared to be at leisure, I went up to him and, sitting down by his side, accosted him: How is this, Ischomachus? you seated here, you who are so little wont to be at leisure? As a rule, when I see you, you are doing something, or at any rate not sitting idle in ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... and from the fixed appearance of the men clustered about him he had held this position for some time. Harwood drew into the outer edge of the crowd unnoticed for a moment. Bassett was at his usual ease; a little cheerfuler of countenance than was his wont, and yet not unduly anxious to appear tranquil. He had precipitated one of the most interesting political struggles the state had ever witnessed, but his air of unconcern before this mixed company of his fellow partisans, among whom there were friends and foes, was well calculated to inspire ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Unyoro, Kamrasi. He was sitting in a kind of porch in front of a hut, and upon seeing me he hardly condescended to look at me for more than a moment; he then turned to his attendants and made some remark that appeared to amuse them, as they all grinned as little men are wont to do when a great man makes a ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... after merely absolute considerations; consequently real passionate love will have its origin, as a rule, in these relative considerations, and it will only be the ordinary phases of love that spring from the absolute. So that it is not stereotyped, perfectly beautiful women who are wont to kindle great passions. Before a truly passionate feeling can exist, something is necessary that is perhaps best expressed by a metaphor in chemistry—namely, the two persons must neutralise each other, like acid and alkali to a neutral salt. Before this can be done the following ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... which all who go to sea must be prepared, that he accepted his lot as common to many another parent, though his gallant boy was not often out of his thoughts. He and Tom seldom, as was once their wont, talked over their adventures and battles, for Jack and his doings was the theme on which, when together, they loved to speak, in subdued tones though, and often with faltering voices and tears springing unexpectedly ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... greater than I could possibly bear. But when I bring up the case of some of our most faithful and successful workers, and realize the fact, which I know to be a fact, that they are dependent on the little salaries they are wont to receive from me for very subsistence, my forewarning passes out of remembrance, and the whole burden rolls down upon my heart. God knows what he is doing, and I cast my care upon him and rest. But it seems to me that from somewhere the few hundreds of dollars—not more than ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 48, No. 10, October, 1894 • Various
... Robert was pretty old already: he had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking-horse. Latterly he was beyond all the impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the parish register worth all the reasons in the world. "I am old and well stricken in years," he was wont to say; and I never found any one bold enough to answer the argument. Apart from this vantage that he kept over all who were not yet octogenarian, he had some other drawbacks as a gardener. He shrank the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... truth, I understand thee not, as my father understood not thine," he replied. "My father was wont to say that Mar Shalmon was strange and peradventure not possessed of all his senses to neglect his store of wealth ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... been wont, in the past, to observe, "was about as near Heaven as the poor need look to get." But now, for some reason, these bitter speeches were growing less frequent on Mary Carew's lips since she opened her door to ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... strain. His uncle was the last to be called, and he 'gaiff thame enought of it, alse plainely and scharplie as he wes accustomit, namely, telling thame flattly, that they knew not quhat they did; and wer degenerat from the antiant nobilitie of Scotland, quho wer wont to give thair landis and lyffes for the fridom of the Kingdome and Gospel, and they wer bewraying and ovirturneing the same! Till it became laite, and eftir sune-sett, that they were faine to dimitt us to the nixt ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison
... ever smiled that way, None that I know,— The essence of all Gaiety lay, Of all mad mirth that men may know, In that sad smile, serene and slow, That on your lips was wont to play. ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... his after-breakfast pipe, the chiming of the bells announced that it was time to prepare for church. The Rectory pew was situated close to the pulpit, at right angles to the body of the church, and Diana and Joan took their places one at either end of it. As the former was wont to remark: "It's such a comfort when there's no competition ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... casa, Mama Faquita stole away down to the negro quarters and, going from hut to hut, roused their occupants and summoned them to a great palaver in the open space which the huts surrounded, and in which the children were wont to play. The scene was a weirdly picturesque one, for, prior to rousing the negroes, Mama had kindled a great fire in the centre of the open space; and in front of this, in a great semicircle, the negroes congregated, squatting ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... ago. The intervening time had been spent in putting Katie's simple wardrobe in order and in making home arrangements by which Mrs. Robertson would not miss her daughter more than she could help, in those various little services which she had been wont to render. The last day had now come; to-morrow the new life was to begin, and Katie was clearing up the breakfast things for the last time when the conversation with which ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... insupportable energy of the white man. Malignant malaria is one of Nature's watch-dogs, set to guard her shrine of peace and ease and to punish woeful intruders. And she had brought me to China to punish me. As is her wont, Nature milked the manhood out of me, racked me with aches and pains, shattered me with chills, scorched me with fever fires, pursued me with despairing visions, and hag-rode me without mercy. Accursed newspapers, with their accursed routine, ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... 'Hello, frien's! howdy an' welcome! I 'm des fixin' fer ter take a warm baff like Mr. Man gi' his hogs; wont you j'ine me?' Dey say dey aint in no hurry, but dey holp Brer Rabbit put de hot rocks in de barrel an' dey watch de water bubble, an' bimeby, when eve'ything wuz ready, who should walk ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... by his hands. That impertinent criticks or flatterers may not brand me for challenging a man that's repute of a poor dastardly soul, let such know that I admit of the two great supporters of his character and the captain of his bands to joyne with him in the combat. Then sure your Grace wont have the impudence to clamour att court for multitudes to hunt me like a fox, under pretence that I am not to be found above ground. This saves your Grace and the troops any further trouble of searching; that is, if your ambition of glory press you to embrace this ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... workaday Wellesley, tranquilly pursuing her serious and semi-serious occupations, that the outsiders know best. To them, she is wont to turn her holiday face. And no college plays with more zest than Wellesley. Perhaps because no college ever had such a perfect playground. Every hill and grove and hollow of the beautiful campus holds its memories of ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... inwoven lived with each, And were in union more than double-sweet. What marvel my Camilla told me all? It was so happy an hour, so sweet a place, And I was as the brother of her blood, And by that name was wont to live in her speech, Dear name! which had too much of nearness in it And heralded the distance of this time. At first her voice was very sweet and low, As tho' she were afeard of utterance; But in the onward current of ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... parson there, A congregation too, Bowed on their bended knees at prayer, As they were wont to do. But soon my heart was struck with pain, I thought it truly odd, The parson's prayer did not ...
— The Little Manx Nation - 1891 • Hall Caine
... wild mountain-side, and was right glad to hear the rough murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the underbrush. Soon appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the village tavern, comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside the bar-room fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes beneath the stoop through all the summers, since Ethan Brand's departure. Laughing boisterously, and mingling all their voices together ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I duly answer for worthy thy deed of fame; Thy mother shall my mother be, nor lack but e'en the name To be Creusa: store of thanks no little hath she won That bore thee. Whatsoever hap thy valorous deed bear on, By this my head, whereon my sire is wont the troth to plight, Whatever I promised thee come back, with all things wrought aright, 300 Thy mother and thy kin shall bide that very same reward." So spake he, weeping, and did off his shoulder-girded sword All golden, that with wondrous craft Lycaon out of Crete Had fashioned, ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... advantage of superior numbers he launched himself full upon the American. To his surprise he met a sword-arm that none might have expected in an American, for Barney Custer had been a pupil of the redoubtable Colonel Monstery, who was, as Barney was wont to say, "one of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... little encounter, one bright September day in the garden, where, after his wont, old Tummus had been to what he called "torment them there weeds," to wit, chopping and tearing them up with his hoe, and leaving them to ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn
... the car, for there would be a riot call immediately if not sooner as the Frontier Boys used to say. The porter hustled the Mexican through the narrow aisle and shut him into the tall thin closet where a supply of bedding was wont to be kept, just as the conductor ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... clock. Ah gits hin' his cheer ret easy, an' quick sneak his cheer f'om un'er him; an' when he finish he set smack on de flow! Den he say "Dogone yuh lil' cattin', ah gwan switch yuh!" Ah jes' fly out de room. Wont sceered though cause ah knows Massa won' ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... who was athirst for the draught of martyrdom for three days, along with Aḳa Sayyid Ḥuseyn of Yezd, the amanuensis, and Aḳa Sayyid Ḥasan, which twain were brothers, wont to pass their time for the most part in ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne
... dressmaker. With the sun shining, and the eager thought of Charles in her heart, Clara could have no anxiety. No problem was insoluble, no obstacle, she believed, could be irresistible. Therefore she smiled as Freeland came in treading more heavily than his wont. He stood and looked ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... stains—said to be the original blood stains—on the floor. Among the historical objects in the immediate neighbourhood is a gnarled old oak nearly six feet in diameter at the base, known as "The Old Council Tree," from the fact that the chief and other dignataries of the Six Nations were wont to hold conferences beneath its spreading branches. Close by is a mound where lie the bodies of many of Brant's Indian contemporaries buried, native fashion in a circle, with the feet ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... talking, and yet had not said half enough. Their only interruption was the little dog Mopsey, who had awakened with his mistress, and now began to be jealous that the Princess did not notice him as much as she was wont ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... supplies from Lee. Then came news of Butler's retreat from Drewry's Bluff, close in to Richmond. Nor was this all; for it was only now that definite news of the Red River Expedition arrived to confirm Grant's worst suspicions and ruin his second plan of helping Farragut to take Mobile. But, as was his wont, Grant at once took steps to meet the crisis. He ordered Hunter to replace Sigel and go south—straight into the heart of the Valley, asked the navy to move his own base down the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... 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 it ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... lay was wondrous soft and downy; and the cold gave me deep sleep, so that I awoke at a late hour to find the sun streaming through my rock window, and the negro telling me, as he was wont to do in the ship, that my bath was ready. The bath-room lay away a few paces from my chamber; but the water that flowed from the silver taps was icily cold; and I shivered after my plunge, though the beauty and luxury of the place compelled my admiration. ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... Therefore, I cordially welcome you to your old-remembered homes and your long deserted firesides, and close this screed with the sincere hope that your visit here will be a happy one, and not embittered by the sorrowful surprises that absence and lapse of years are wont to prepare for wanderers; surprises which come in the form of old friends missed from their places; silence where familiar voices should be; the young grown old; change and decay everywhere; home a delusion and a disappointment; strangers ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... night, gentle and serene, such a night as in the favored clime of Andalusia is wont to succeed the sultriness of a summer's day. The bright canopy of heaven shone in passionless serenity, emblazoned with its countless stars. The moon flung a solemn light on the tall palaces and stately ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... thus disconsolate, a footstep in the apartment attracted her attention, and raising her tearful eyes, she saw her friend Fanny, who had run in, laughing, as was her wont. Fanny was a handsome little brunette, about Redbud's age, and full of merriment and glee—perhaps sparkle would be the better word, inasmuch as this young lady always seemed to be upon the verge of laughter—brim full with it, and ready to overflow, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... carried his son into the lordly chamber where the mother's sad existence had been spent. Etienne turned away and leaned against the window from which his mother was wont to make him signals announcing the departure of his persecutor, who now, without his knowing why, had become his slave, like those gigantic genii which the power of a fairy places at the order of a young prince. That fairy ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... on a dull autumn afternoon, the cashier of one of the largest banks in Paris was still at his desk, working by the light of a lamp that had been lit for some time. In accordance with the use and wont of commerce, the counting-house was in the darkest corner of the low-ceiled and far from spacious mezzanine floor, and at the very end of a passage lighted only by borrowed lights. The office doors along this corridor, each with its label, gave the place the look of a bath-house. ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... wont to sit at our feet even in this day, and yet they sat at the feet of Jonathan Edwards as in the presence of a master when he was a mere home missionary, living among the Indians, to whom he ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... cases he had not failed to accuse his superiors of injustice, and his fortunate rivals of gross flattery. In his opinion, seniority was the only claim to advancement—the only, the best, the most respectable claim; and he was wont to sum up all his opinions, all his grief and bitterness of mind in one phrase: "It is infamous to pass over an old ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... isoceles triangles and algebraic conundrums to solve the essential problems of food and clothing and shingled roofs. It was a new viewpoint which planted doubts where what he had supposed to be certainties had been wont to blossom. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... morning we were called; at six we got on board the packet, where I found a sensible and conversible man—a very pleasant circumstance. The day was raw and cold, the wind and tide surly and contrary, the passage slow, and Anne, contrary to her wont, excessively sick. We had little trouble at the Custom House, thanks to the secretary of the Embassy, Mr. Jones, who gave me a letter to Mr. Ward. [At Dover] Mr. Ward came with the Lieutenant-Governor of the castle, and wished ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... lips, surprised Braybrooke. For Lady Sellingworth was not wont to turn any talk in which she took part upon questions concerned with the heart. He had frequently noticed her apparent aversion from all topics connected with deep feeling. To-night, it seemed, this aversion ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... society. The etiquette of that howff of the Crochallan Fencibles in the Anchor Close or of Johnnie Dowie's tavern in Libberton's Wynd was not the etiquette of drawing-rooms; and the poet was free to enliven the hours with a rattling fire of witty remarks on men and things as he had been wont to do on the bog at Lochlea, with only a few ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... of his fellows, and wont to declare that the proportion of good to bad in human nature was as ten to one the world over. This tenet of his religion he infused in some measure into all his novels. It is this they teach if they teach anything. From it ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... might in the end encourage the listener to resume his own literary tasks. Reardon found much to criticise in his friend's work; it was noteworthy that he objected and condemned with much less hesitation than in his better days, for sensitive reticence is one of the virtues wont to be assailed by suffering, at all events in the weaker natures. Biffen purposely urged these discussions as far as possible, and doubtless they benefited Reardon for the time; but the defeated novelist could not be induced to undertake another practical illustration of his own views. Occasionally ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... as had always been his wont. He allowed the 'plane to drop a good quarter of a mile with a sudden lurch, and then righting it, darted forward again. For a moment they had shaken off the foe, but the latter was not long in finding them. Searchlights flashed in ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... touch nor line of even decent painting in the whole picture; but as connoisseurs have considered it a Claude, as it has been put in our Gallery for a Claude, and as people admire it every day for a Claude, I may at least presume it has those qualities of Claude in it which are wont to excite the public admiration, though it possesses none of those which sometimes give him claim to it; and I have so reasoned, and shall continue to reason upon it, especially with respect to facts of form, which cannot have been much altered by the copyist. In the distance ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... lies upon my brain. This feeling partly I plead in excuse, and partly that I am now in London, and am a helpless sort of person, who cannot even arrange his own papers without assistance; and I am separated from the hands which are wont to perform for me ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... monument of Olynthus. They say that formerly the people used to perform the accustomed rites to the dead in the month Elaphebolion, but now they do them in Anthesterion, and that on this account the fish come up in those months only in which they are wont to do honour to the dead." The river is the chief source of the food-supply, so to send fish, not seeds and flowers, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... compel his attention on grounds of economy, if not those of the friendly interest which I now believed he had abandoned. Early the next morning, as I had hoped, the steward appeared. He approached me in a friendly way (as had been his wont) and I met him in a like manner. "I wish you would leave a little bit of the building," ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers |
