"Frivolity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... meet Engineer Serko when my strolls take me in the direction of the Beehive. He always shows himself disposed to chat with me, though, it is true, he does so in a tone of impertinent frivolity. We converse upon all sorts of subjects, but rarely of my position. Recrimination thereanent is useless and only subjects ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... in a Turkish bath, would explain in all sincerity that a doctor had ordered them to take Turkish baths; if you told them in return that you went there because you liked it, they would stare in pained wonder at the frivolity of your motive. In the same way, whenever a massacre of Armenians is reported from Asia Minor, every one assumes that it has been carried out "under orders" from somewhere or another, no one ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... that his indignation at such frivolity should overcome his gratitude, and he regretted as he walked briskly along that the diffidence peculiar to young men in his circumstances had prevented him from acquainting his father with the state of his feelings towards ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... centre and sitting in it with his eyes shut. As he grew more comfortable he reflected how he had calmed that woman, and he resolved again to spend his life in doing good. "Yes, that's the only ticket," he said to himself, with involuntary frivolity. He thought of what the officer had said, and he helplessly added, "Circus ticket— reserved seat." Then he began again, and loaded ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... incentives to Art which are commanded by all other branches of Literature as well as the ennobling sentiments inspired by religion, patriotism and other affections of the human heart. An elevating mission, indeed, be it only directed in a worthy course. Frivolity and license are alike the bane of literature and art. Earnestness of purpose and severity of moral tone are the stamina of both. Shorn of these, both alike find their strength is gone from them. It is consoling to reflect that notwithstanding the laborious turmoil of politics ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... he said. "She's Scotch—old type Calvinist at that. No frivolity about that woman. Married a Scandinavian, and was just breaking him in when he was killed back ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... brother rebuked Teddy's frivolity with a glance, and then turned his eyes toward the line of thundering surf they were rapidly approaching. Lester was absorbed in the problem before him, glancing now at the line of breakers and then at the big waves chasing the boat, each one looking as though it must surely ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... born 1503, died 1540, was a follower of Correggio's. In Parmigianino's case the danger of the master's peculiarities became apparent by the lapse into affectation and frivolity. 'His Madonnas are empty and condescending, his female saints like ladies in waiting.' Still there were certain indestructible beauties of the master which yet clung to the scholar. He had clear warm colouring, decision, and ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... very young that little was written on her face, yet the little, something unusual, baffling. The mouth, too tightly set, too drooping—that expressed it all. To educate such a one in the ways of innocent frivolity! ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... mother at our solicitor's office according to appointment. As she was on the eve of departing for the Continent, it was necessary that various family matters should be arranged. On the day following, as I was about to leave my hotel to call at Cyril's studio, rather doubtful, after the frivolity I had lately witnessed, as to whether or not I should unburden my heart to such a man, he entered my room in company with Wilderspin, the latter carrying a ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... and Mr. C. Matthews played Lady and Lord Whiffle—two also exceedingly difficult characters, but by these performers most delicately handled. They are a very young, inexperienced (almost childish), and quarrelsome couple. Frivolity so extreme as they were required to represent demands the utmost nicety of colouring to rescue it from silliness and inanity. But the actors kept their portraits well up to a pleasing standard, and made them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... what he needs very badly. Change! Oh, if everybody could have that when they need it! How it does make lives over! I know—how I do know! It's the deadly monotony that kills. Jean will bloom under the old farmhouse roof, away from all the fuss and frivolity ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... exclusive attention. His fondness and petting were the same, but she perceived that he found in his sister a companionship of which she did not feel capable. But to Theodora herself, whenever she succeeded in engrossing Arthur, it seemed a victory of sisterly affection and sense over beauty and frivolity. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unworthy in one of your rank. The husbands, parents, brothers, and relations of these young women were excluded, in order that your amusements should be the more unbridled. You with a few servants undertook to direct and lead those dances. It is said that nothing is now talked of in Siena but your frivolity. Certain it is that here at the baths, where the concourse of ecclesiastics and laity is great, you are the topic of the day. Our displeasure is unutterable, since all this reflects dishonourably upon the sacerdotal estate and office. It will be said of us that we are enriched and ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... spirit of the foreigner a kind of gross levity, an affectation of frivolity with respect to women, and a continual habit of vulgar vanity, which seems to run through all ranks and ages of the continental world. What can be more offensively trifling, than the conduct which Napoleon narrates of himself, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... designs that were well suited to tapestries and embroideries. All the heathen gods, with Cupids, garlands, floating ribbons, crowns, and cyphers were everywhere carved, gilded, and worked. It was the visible tide of the frivolity in which poor Marie Antoinette was drowned; though before the Revolution she had somewhat simplified the forms of decoration, and straight lines instead of curves, and delicacy rather than splendour, had superseded, at least at court, the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... all believers should make when on the brink of the grave," replied Madame Clemenceau, in her gravest tone to repress the tendency to frivolity, for she had not resented the ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... priestess, now left alone. The shutters were white and fluted, and being closed, heightened the effect of clean linen which the house always presented—linen starched to the point of perfection, with a dignified frill, but no frivolity of ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... Insensibly and gradually she led her companion away from his design of approaching her own secrets or character, into frank talk about himself. All unconsciously he began to lay bare to his listener the infirmities of his erring, open heart. Silently she looked down, and plumbed them all,—the frivolity, the recklessness, the half gay, half mournful sense of waste and ruin. There, blooming amongst the wrecks, she saw the fairest flowers of noble manhood profuse and fragrant still,—generosity and courage and disregard for self. Spendthrift ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... opportunity to strike a blow at three conspicuous men of whom he thought ill in point both of science and religion. He spoke of Gieseler as the flattest and most leathern of historians; he accused Baur of frivolity and want of theological conviction; and he wished that he knew as many circumlocutions for untruth as there are Arabian synonyms for a camel, that he might do justice to Bunsen without violation of courtesy. The weight of the new testimony depended on the discovery ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... life. I could not so suddenly tear myself away from my fancied wealth, could not so readily separate the props of my morality and happiness from the pleasing dream with which everything within me was so closely bound up. I longed for the frivolity which seems to render the existence of most of those about me endurable to themselves. Everything which precluded reflection was welcome to me. Shall I confess it to you? I wished to lower myself, in order to ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... those squat, heathen, Satsuma vases, inlaid with distorted figures and symbols and toned in all luridness of color, into which has been tossed a poor sort of flower plucked from any bush the owner happened to pass, which has been salted down in frivolity—or perhaps something stronger. I'll keep the lid on to-night, for you ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... extreme suffering, if it is only surrounded, without separating us, would seem to me nothing but a charming antithesis to the sublime frivolity of our marriage. Why should we not take the harshest whim of chance for an excellent jest and a most frolicsome caprice, since we, like our love, are immortal? I can no longer say my love and your love; they ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... of what was brewing. But Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary, who in frivolity seemed a contemporary embodiment of Nero, deemed cheap wit a sufficient reply to all remonstrances, and had to confess afterwards that he had utterly miscalculated the forces with which he had to deal. He was completely taken by surprise when, on the 20th of April, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... duchy of Milan. Audacity, vigor, unscrupulous crime were the chief requisites for success. It was not till Cesare Borgia displayed his magnificence at the French Court, till the Italian adventurer matched himself with royalty in its legitimate splendor, that the lowness of his origin and the frivolity of his pretensions appeared in any glaring light.[1] In Italy itself, where there existed no time-honored hierarchy of classes and no fountain of nobility in the person of a sovereign, one man was a match for another, provided he knew how to assert himself. To the conditions ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... from the example of Alfieri, there was another motive at work—a determination to prove to the world that he was the master of his own temperament, and that, if he chose, he could cast away frivolity and cynicism, and clothe himself with austerity "as with a garment." He had been taken to task for "treating well-nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices" (Blackwood's Edin. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... political power of Spain. The splendid empire of Charles V had sunk, from causes inherent in the policies of that over-ambitious monarch, through the somber bigotry of Philip II, the ineptitude of Philip III, the frivolity of Philip IV, to the imbecility of Charles II; and the death of the last of the Hapsburg rulers in 1700 left Spain in a deplorably enfeebled condition physically and intellectually. The War of the Succession (1701-1714) exhausted her internal strength still more, and the final acknowledgment ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... from any frivolity or irreverence, but because the music, which sounds so grandly impressive here in the Sistine Chapel, strikes one as a mere confusion of discordant notes amid ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... from Angelot's friend, whose frivolity had given him his chance, and whose anxiety to put himself on the right side by catching him again, dead or alive, very nearly brought his young life to a speedy end. For foolish Francois was wise this time, so wise, had he only known it, that Angelot was sitting in the ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... evening I went to the "Frivolity," to see the latest rays of the lamp of burlesque. That scene, at any rate, was familiar. There, in all their spotless panoply of expressionless face, and irreproachable shirt-front, sat the golden lads of the Metropolis in their rows, images of bored stupidity, stiffly cased in black and white. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... time, by the light of my living common sense, that they would have been far better relieved by a kiss or a thrashing, or a few words of explanation, or a duel, or a tour in the West Highlands. Then, as this grew on me, there grew on me continuously the sense of a mountainous frivolity. Every word said in the court, a whisper or an oath, seemed more connected with life than the words I had to say. Then came the time when I publicly blasphemed the whole bosh, was classed as a madman ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... David marries her younger sister Marcia instead and it is only after a period of trials and heartaches that Marcia wins her husband's love when he comes to understand her worthiness and Kate's heartless frivolity and duplicity. The Chicago Tribune pronounces Marcia "One of the most lovable heroines that ever lived her life in the pages ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... Men felt this, and he was popular among those who knew him in his service, though not in any hail-fellow-well-met kind of way. But among women he was not popular. As a rule they both feared and disliked him. His presence jarred upon the frivolity of the lighter members of their sex, who dimly realised that his nature was antagonistic, and the more solid ones could not understand him. Perhaps this was the reason why Colonel Quaritch had never married, had never even had a love affair ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... sluggish blood was not stirred by the call of duty. It's bigness of soul that makes nations great and not population. Money, comfort, limousines and ragtime are not the requisites of men when heroes are dying. I hate the thought of Fifth Avenue, with its pretty faces, its fashions, its smiling frivolity. America as a great nation will die, as all coward civilisations have died, unless she accepts the stigmata of sacrifice, which a divine opportunity ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... game, or even laughing heartily, she would interrupt them to say, "Children, are you sure you can ask God's blessing on all this? Do you think that beings with immortal souls to save should give rein to such frivolity! I fear you are sinning, and be sure your sin will find you out. Remember, that for every idle word and deed we must give an account to the Great Judge ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... merry humour and handsome, manly figure, backed up by the best letters of introduction, made him a general favourite. Polite society had a peculiar phraseology in those days. Rudeness used to be called frankness; bad language, originality; violence, manliness; and frivolity, nonchalance. To Mike, therefore, was attributed a whole host of good qualities, and the only alteration required of him was that he should wear an attila instead of a mente. He was a gentleman by birth, and that was enough. Every one admired, not his mind, indeed—they troubled themselves ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... he had to retire on what was available of his own fortune. He even wondered if it would not be wise to buy a fruit ranch, where he and Helene could share equally in the management, and begin at once to raise a family. They both loved outdoor life, and this life of complete frivolity, in which she seemed to be hopelessly enmeshed, might before long corrode her nature and blast the mental aspirations that still survived in that untended soil. When this great merging deal was over he ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... her frivolity by sharing it. Kind beyond her utmost merit. She did not say so, but she thought it, sitting dumb, in sudden tears, and burning with shame for her blindness to the hour's fearful realities. While Ned stepped to Watson's side to speak ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... was to wear. Lucy drew off from her companion as soon as Nancy Parker joined them, partly from a real desire of thinking quietly of her teacher's parting words, partly in proud disdain of Bessie's frivolity. "How can she go on so," she thought, "after what Miss Preston has been saying?" But she forgot that disdain is as far removed from the spirit of the loving and pitying Saviour as even the frivolity ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... their last joint campaigns in France, crystallised into definite parties the discordant tendencies that had been well marked since the crisis of 1371. The old king was a mere pawn in the game. His health had been broken by the debauchery and frivolity to which he had abandoned himself after the death of Queen Philippa. He was now entirely under the influence of Alice Perrers, a Hertfordshire squire's daughter, whose venality, greed, and shamelessness made her the fit tool ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... exciting times. Some members thought it of great importance not to offend new States by giving them no recognition on the flag. Others called it dishonorable to waste time over what one man called "a consummate piece of frivolity," when matters "of infinitely greater consequence" ought to be discussed. Another declared that the Senate sent the bill for the want of something better to do. Yet another honorable member did not think it worth while either to adopt or reject the proposed law, but supposed "the ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... Brookenham took without wincing whatever, as between a masterful relative and an exposed frivolity, might have been the sting of it. "That you must ask Edward. I ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... to deny some accusation Lord Cloverton has made against me. I tremble lest I may be unable to do so. Of what frivolity do I stand accused?" and she smiled at the Ambassador with an innocent expression on her ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... and Heloise to the broken turf on the new grave of poverty only designated by a wooden cross; gray clouds flitted along the zenith, and a pale streak of light defined the wide horizon; Paris with its frivolity, temples, business, pleasures, trophies and teeming life, sent up a confused and low murmur in the distance; only the wind was audible among the tombs. Never had the beautiful Church of England services appeared to me so grand and pathetic as when here read over the coffin of one ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... train on Monday morning. Life at Edison was of the simple kind—work, meals, and a few hours' sleep—day by day. The little village, called into existence by the concentrating works, was of the most primitive nature and offered nothing in the way of frivolity or amusement. Even the scenery is austere. Hence Edison was enabled to follow his natural bent in being surrounded day and night by his responsible chosen associates, with whom he worked uninterrupted by outsiders from early morning ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... at a workers' mutual improvement society. Even his name suggested, to the serious mind, the compiler of an anthology of British war poets or the writer of a book of Nature studies, rather than the material wealth, female folly, late suppers, greenrooms, frivolity and immorality brought before a vivid imagination by the mere mention ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... burst, covering all that part of the world, I was stopping for some weeks at the Hotel Nassau. It stands in the main street, opposite the park gate leading to the Casino. All the world went to Wiesbaden to be amused. However fashionable frivolity and vice may be elsewhere, here it was strictly de rigueur, and to pretend to decency and sobriety would be to stamp one's self a heathen and barbarian, all unversed in the glorious flower-wreathed Primrose Way of ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... midwife; infant mortality was appalling. Then came the Frontier Nursing School headed by Mrs. Mary Breckinridge. Her work is known throughout the breadth of the nation. The Frontier Nursing Service has the support of the leading people of the nation. Debutantes gladly give up a life of frivolity and ease to become trained in obstetrics and give their services to helping mountain mothers and babies. Its purpose was to combat the infant death rate in remote Kentucky mountain sections. The nurses ride on horseback and visit ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... it a thrill of inexpressible tenderness, a quick, passionate sense of possession, a rapture as of having won her and made her his own forever, by saving her from that horrible risk. The maze in which he had but now dwelt concerning her seemed an obsolete frivolity of an alien past; all the cold doubts and hindering scruples which he had felt from the first were gone; gone all his care for his world. His world? In that supreme moment, there was no world but in the tender eyes at which ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... to hold as articles of her very limited faith, that the serious concerns of life are of interest only to fools, and should, therefore (though the inference is not obvious), be entirely neglected by herself, and that frivolity and fashion are the twin deities before whom every ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 15, 1890 • Various
... the disgrace which you have, by reason of the aforesaid actions and conduct, brought upon his name, and because of various and sundry acts of disobedience, as well as your life of frivolity and dissipation,—our client has instructed us to inform you, that he has cut you off from him absolutely; that he has drawn a new will wherein the amount of your legacy is fixed at the sum of one ($1.00) dollar; that he will no longer ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... very colonial: but I think his ways make the house pleasanter than if he were still English. Carbury is quite stupid in comparison to this place. I have danced more than I ever did in my life before; and now we are so tired of frivolity that if any one ventures to strum a waltz or propose a game, we all protest. We tried to get up some choral music; but it was a failure. On Friday, George, who is looked on as a great man here, was asked to give us a Shakespeare ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... is one thing; and for another the feeling of personal freedom is essential, and that feeling has only recently begun to develop in me. I used not to have it before; its place was successfully filled by my frivolity, carelessness, and lack of respect ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... relieved, the bride obeyed and, once out on the prairie, poured forth her tale. She had at the last moment decided she could not bear to be married without a veil, and had gone early in the morning to the nearest town to invest her last money in that frivolity. Fate was against her, however, for there were no veils in the shops, and a persuasive milliner had induced her to give up her cherished notion and buy a hat instead. "And I'm most sure the ribbon's cotton-back," she sighed. "I don't know why I bought ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... just when we did," said Lucile, peeping around a corner of the cabin. "I see old lady Banks in the distance. 'Pray, and may I inquire the cause of all this frivolity?'" and she imitated the old lady so perfectly that they went ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... pervaded Versailles. Madame was a woman of great intelligence and wit, and made all feel the gracious influence of her fine companionship. There was nothing ascetic in her piety, but, on the other hand, frivolity, immorality, and unworthy intrigue had no place in her circle. And all those that attended her held her in esteem and profound respect. With all her incomparable grace, she was in mind and spirit more truly ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... locusts lustily prophesied a hot day. Occasionally an industrious rabbit travelled at express speed from the world on one side of the red road to the world on the other. And above all this bustle and business and frivolity rang the brazen laugh of a company of kookaburras, who were answering each other from ...
— An Australian Lassie • Lilian Turner
... restlessly, "you can't imagine how very tired I grow of it all—of lights and cities and restaurants and everything artificial! Surely these city days and nights of silly frivolity are only the froth of life! Have you ever longed to sleep in the woods," she added abruptly, "with stars twinkling overhead and the moonlight showering softly through ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... butler! Certainly he would have to write Chuck about it—(which he most certainly never did). Still, the ordeal in the dining-room was a severe one. Nothing he attempted was done satisfactorily; Pierre, having in mind Celeste's frivolity and this man's good looks, made the task doubly hard. He hissed "Idiot!" and "Imbecile!" and "Jackass!" as many times as there are knives and forks and spoons at a course dinner. It was when they ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... this abominable form of activity to which Nature is privy is in reality a form of decomposition or putrefaction; but willful men will hardly be restrained by science in their illicit pursuit of frivolity. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... grins, sort of sly and sheepish, like they wasn't used to indulgin' in such frivolity. They seemed to enjoy it, though, and the first thing I know I'm bein' put through a sort of highbrow third degree, the object being to show up what an empty loft I wear my ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... radical revolution in the spiritual condition of the enormous majority of the people of all lands. Its aim is to produce a change not only in the opinions, feelings, and principles of these vast populations, but to alter the whole course of their lives, so that instead of spending their time in frivolity and pleasure-seeking, if not in the grossest forms of vice, they shall spend it in the service of their generation and in the worship of God. So far it has mainly operated in professedly Christian countries, where the overwhelming majority of the people have ceased, publicly, at any rate, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... in her the signs of frivolity and vanity that he had failed to see that day when he had met her in Willets. Her attitude now revealed her as plainly as though he had known her all her days. She comprehended none of life's big problems; the relations ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... loyally bound to make it a success. Zachariah and Caillaud were not of much use in organisation, and the whole burden fell upon the Major. Externally gay, and to most persons justifying the charge of frivolity, he was really nothing of the kind when he had once settled down to the work he was born to do. His levity was the mere idle sport of a mind unattached and seeking its own proper object. He was like a cat, which will play with a ball or its own tail in ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... power—some of them to a much larger extent than others—of changing their hues in order to match the gravel of the stream in which they swim or the leaves of the trees on which they feed. That is like what a great many of us do. Put us into a place where certain forms of frivolity or vice are common, and we go in for them. Take us away from these and we change our hue to something a little whiter. But all through we never know what it is to put forth a good solid force of resistance ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... her giddiness and frivolity, the girl pronounced these last words so decisively, that Rudolph felt, to his great regret, that he would never obtain from her the desired information about Germain; and he felt a repugnance ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... of the plays I've seen have the naivete and simplicity of a confession. Others interpret abnormal, psychopathic characters whose feelings and thoughts are expressed by the actors with a fine and vivid realism. There is the exultation of life, and the despair, the aggression and apathy, the frivolity and the revolt. The action is taken slowly. There are no stars. You look at the screen as though you were looking at life itself. And the films don't always have happy endings, because life isn't always kind. It often seems senseless and ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... government being divided among the select party, like a twelfth cake, nor see the interests of a nation which represents the interests of the globe, compromised to suit the contending claims of full-dressed frivolity. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... unhappy pause. "I forget what a fellow does with the other hand. Might stick it in your pocket, loudly, or expectorate on the carpet. Indulge in little frivolity. Let a ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... there and shake her out of her frivolity. Which was strange when you consider that all his life, until three months ago, he had lived in the midst of just such unthinking flippancy, had been a part of it and had considered—as much as he ever considered anything—that it was the ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... with their predecessors, had wasted eight months of most precious time; they had heard and made orations, they had read and written protocols, they had witnessed banquets, masquerades, and revels of stupendous frivolity, in honour of the English Garter, brought solemnly to the Valois by Lord Derby, accompanied by one hundred gentlemen "marvellously, sumptuously, and richly accoutred," during that dreadful winter when the inhabitants of Brussels, Antwerp, Mechlin—to save which splendid cities ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... traveller, capriciously, clandestinely, without giving notice, when she had left her to understand that she was simply spending three or four days in town. It was bad taste and bad form, it was cabotin and had the mark of Selina's complete, irremediable frivolity—the worst accusation (Laura tried to cling to that opinion) that she laid herself open to. Of course frivolity that was never ashamed of itself was like a neglected cold—you could die of it morally as well as of anything else. Laura ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... chapter in this division (xiii.-xxiii.) which is not concerned with foreign nations. It probably owes its place here to its peculiar superscription which conforms to the other superscription in xiii.-xxiii. In this chapter the prophet laments and very sternly rebukes the frivolity of the people of Jerusalem—whether shortly before the invasion of Sennacherib or after his retreat, it is hard to say. Trusting in their armour and fortifications they give the rein to their appetites, but he solemnly declares that their sin will be punished ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... of the tablecloth a little hand stole along and laid a gentle pressure on Jack's arm. He turned and met Mollie's eyes, grave and appealing, with no trace of the frivolity of which he had complained earlier in the day, and, at the sight, his irritation died a sudden death. Mollie must indeed have forgiven him when she condescended to so sweet an intimacy. The rush of joy which accompanied the thought put him at once ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... most witty men were also intensely serious and dutiful,—how they were both disciplined by a great sorrow, and obedient to a noble purpose,—and thus to relieve wit from the charge of having any natural alliance with frivolity. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... of learning the Italian polish, travelled to Italy. From the days of Gabriel Harvey and Lord Oxford, about the middle of Elizabeth's reign, this foul tide had begun to set toward England, gaining an additional coarseness and frivolity in passing through the French Court (then an utter Gehenna) in its course hitherward; till, to judge by Marston's 'Satires,' certain members of the higher classes had, by the beginning of James's reign, learnt nearly all which the Italians had to teach them. Marston writes ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... and rapine argues the final abyss of arachnoid perfidy. It reminds one of that charming and amiable young lady in Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dynamiter,' who amused herself in moments of temporary gaiety by blowing up inhabited houses, inmates and all, out of pure lightness of heart and girlish frivolity. An Indian mantis or praying insect, a little less wicked, though no less cruel than the spiders, deceives the flies who come to his arms under the false pretence of being a quiet leaf, upon which they may light in safety for rest and refreshment. Yet another abandoned member of the same ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... shock over, Mary showed not only more courage, but more sound sense than I could have believed. All the frivolity of her former character vanished at the first touch of adversity; just as of old, Harry, we left the tinsel of our gay jackets behind, when active service called upon us for something more sterling. She advised, counselled, and encouraged me by turns; and in half an hour the most poignant ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the dearest offering that a misbegotten son of poverty and rhyme has to give? I have a longing to take you by the hand and unburthen my heart by saying, "Sir, I honour you as a man who supports the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish!" But, alas, Sir! to me you are unapproachable. It is true, the muses baptized me in Castalian streams, but the thoughtless gipsies forgot to give me a name. As the sex have served ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... his frivolity had, no doubt, to do with his personal designation, which represented—as yet, for our young woman, a little confusedly—a connection with an historic patriciate, a class that, in turn, also confusedly, represented ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... before she is settled in life, crosses my mind when I am in a serious mood. That she will marry well, there is little doubt, for she possesses beauty in a rare degree, and has been reared as an English girl should be, not to frivolity and foppery. She was trained by her mother, who save for the mad act she was persuaded into by me, was all goodness and refinement, for the first twelve years of her life, and since then by an admirable governess. No fear that she will be ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Elizabethan public as a model of elegance. His art was perhaps only an instrument for the acquisition of social success, but he was nevertheless an artist to the fingertips. Yet he was without the artist's ideals, and this fact, together with his frivolity, vitiated his writings to a considerable extent, or, rather, the superficiality of his art was the result of the superficiality of his soul. Of that "high seriousness," which Aristotle has declared to be the poet's essential, he has nothing. Technique throughout was his chief interest, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... can be idler? And yet haven't we seen grave people and gay listening very contentedly at times to that wild and awful sort of frivolity; and I think there is in most men's minds, sages or zanies, a secret misgiving that dreams may have an office and a meaning, and are perhaps more than a fortuitous concourse of symbols, in fact, the language which good or evil ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... neighbors, that my predictions will come true. They're coming true already. The spirit of frivolity and sin is running riot in this town. Wickedness is rampant. Staid and respectable citizens are losing their dignity. Good church members are becoming afflicted with this worldly spirit. And who's to blame for ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... work that the pupil does not understand. For one girl in the higher middle classes who suffers from overwork, there are, I believe, hundreds whose health suffers from a feverish love of excitement, from the irritability produced by idleness, frivolity, and discontent. I am persuaded, and my experience has been confirmed by experienced physicians, that the want of wholesome occupation lies at the root of the languid debility of which we hear so much after ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... of its living growth, from the wrinkled contraction of its decay.[1] Thus, in morals, there is a care for trifles which proceeds from love and conscience, and is most holy; and a care for trifles which comes of idleness and frivolity, and is most base. And so, also, there is a gravity proceeding from thought, which is most noble; and a gravity proceeding from dulness and mere incapability of enjoyment, which is most base. Now, in the various ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... a generalisation, it was certainly an audacious one, but Dick was thinking only of a personal application. Daisy's words, as he understood their meaning, were working on the better nature which lay below his frivolity. He began to suffer genuine shame and remorse at the idea that he had caused suffering—lasting pain—to this poor unsophisticated child who had loved him so readily. Moved by this honourable, ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... one of the most showy and luxurious in the city. He kept his carriages and horses, his cellar of costly wines, and entertained on a scale of great extravagance and sumptuousness. He was, in fact, the centre of fashion, frivolity, sociability, and even of the fashionable dissipations of the day. His person, which even in extreme old age was remarkable for dignity, erectness, and courtliness, at the period we write of, was conspicuous for all the graces of manhood. Indeed, he was styled ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had gained a master instead of a servant. Frivolity was not the idea of war held by Pyrrhus. He at once shut up the theatre, the gymnasia, and the public walks, stopped all feasting and revelry throughout the city, closed the clubs or brotherhoods, and kept the citizens under ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... black-eyed children sit on the floor in sleepy stolidity at the feet of their mothers or nurses, and was it not a mere worldly folly to pretend that a child of sixteen months could not be brought to church? It was another instance of the mother's frivolity and the grandfather's idolatry. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the healing rays had come too late. We crossed some deserted public gardens commanded by a gorgeous casino, its porticos heaped with chairs and tables; so past kiosques and cafs, great white hotels with boarded windows, bazaars and booths, and all the stale lees of vulgar frivolity, to the post-office, which at least was alive. I received a packet of letters and purchased a local time-table, from which we learned that the steamer sailed daily to Borkum via Norderney, touching ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... unable to bring any succour to faith here. However firm may have been the faith of the disciples in the appearances of Jesus in their midst, and it was firm, to believe in appearances which others have had is a frivolity which is always revenged by rising doubts. But history is still of service to faith; it limits its scope and therewith shews the province to which it belongs. The question which history leaves to faith is this: Was Jesus Christ swallowed up of death, or did he pass through suffering and the ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... of a great variety of knowledge, and with the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the point in question. My impressions of him and his order, imbibed among the prejudices of England and the libels of France, was that of frivolity and flutter—an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I never was more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not merely the persons of all the leading men of Europe—which might have naturally been the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... the fashion died. There are many charming examples of it to be seen in museums and private collections, but the modern garish copies of it in many shops give no idea of the charm of the original. Watteau's delightful decorations also give the true spirit of the time, with their gayety and frivolity showing the Arcadian affectations—the fad ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop
... disgraced preacher and the reformed convict had struck up a fast friendship. They sat with their backs towards the Jasper B., and Cleggett supposed from their attitude that they were sternly condemnatory of the frivolity and festivity on ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... painted with a scene of the Luxembourg gardens in which a fete was taking place. Young lovers in the dim sunlight under the trees, paid court to their ladies. There was flirting and teasing and romping play. Though gaiety and frivolity were expressed yet there was a certain wistfulness as well, a little heart-throb ...
— The Merriweather Girls and the Mystery of the Queen's Fan • Lizette M. Edholm
... and Sybil's interest in it were a great relief to Madeleine's mind, and she now turned her whole soul to frivolity. Never, since she was seventeen, had she thought or talked so much about a ball, as now about this ball to the Grand-Duchess. She wore out her own brain in the effort to amuse Sybil. She took her to call on the Princess; she would have taken her to call on the Grand Lama had he come to Washington. ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... in the drama, where Miss Peggy Prettylegs of the Frivolity Follies will draw the salary of a Prime Minister for showing her surname, while Miss Georgiana de Montmorency, the actress who knows Shakspere so intimately that she mutters "Dear old Will" in her sleep, is resting so long in her top flat in Bloomsbury that ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... vanity. Stevens's figures, on the contrary, always for their own decency, which throws into the core, the heart of the monument such an expression of beauty, giving rise to the word innate, quenching the sense of frivolity, which unrestrained, disordered state of things oozes out somewhere, or is at any rate felt "in the air" in Michael Angelo's works. Stevens's head was wonderfully poised on his own "torso" to know and feel this with such thrilling, vital, consistent ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... be, since twelve years ago I was only five years old? The frivolity of the child cannot surely be placed to the ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in their time there was energy; there were great crimes indeed, but the Church was active. The bad was very bad, but the good was very good, there were real broad questions then of right and wrong, not the coldness and frivolity, where all was so worthless that there was scarce a possibility of caring or seeing which part was ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... did we gaze upon the fast receding land from which we expected to be alienated for ever. Notwithstanding our depressing circumstances, however, we attempted pluckily to keep up our spirits, and with laughter and frivolity to cheer each other. Most of us had never been on a ship before, and only one of our number had ever voyaged away from South Africa. Ours was a very cheerless prospect, for, although we did not know our exact ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... but things must be settled," said Prince Vasili to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity... well, God be with him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, "but it must be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya's name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affair—yes, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... the series of essays, in which he gave an elaborate review of Paradise Lost. Such also was his famous paper, the Vision of Mirza, an oriental allegory of human life. The adoption of this slightly pedagogic tone was justified by the prevalent ignorance and frivolity of the age. But the lighter portions of the Spectator are those which have worn the best. Their style is at once correct and easy, and it is as a humorist, a sly observer of manners, and above all, a delightful talker, that Addison is best known to posterity. In the personal sketches of the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... had been obtained through the Earl of Oxford, a distant cousin of her husband, in whose household her son Walter had long before taken unwholesome lessons in fashion and extravagance. The Earl, now in his grand climacteric, had outlived his youthful frivolity, and though he had become a hard and austere man, was yet willing to do a kindness to his kinsman's widow by engaging a house for her, and offering for her grandson a squire's place which happened to be vacant in his household. She would have preferred some less showy and more solid means ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... South Wind and the Sun, Each so loves the other one, For all his jolly folly And frivolity and fun, That our love for them they weigh As their fickle fancies may, And when at last we love them most, They laugh ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... what a night-owl sees at dawn. The snot is dripping from his frosty nose, And stringed saliva falls on his wet breast— Not an odd tooth in his defenceless gums, Not an old ape so engraved with wrinkles. Naevolus, for shame leave this frivolity And no more cry, "All men," ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... family had not altered Master Ratty's propensities in the least, the case was far different with Gustavus. In that one night of suffering which he had passed, the gulf was leaped that divides the boy from the man; and the extra frivolity and carelessness which clung from boyhood up to the age of fifteen was at once, by the sudden disrupture produced by events, thrown off, and as singular a ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... I cannot understand this. I do not learn whether their coming to this place be but the whim of a moment, or a plan for a longer stay: if the latter, farewell, solitude! farewell, study!—farewell!—Yes, I must make room for gaiety, and mere frivolity. Yet could I willingly submit to all; but, should the Countess give me new proofs of her attachment, perhaps of her respect, Oh! how will my conscience upbraid me! Or—I shudder at the thought! if this seat be visited by company, and chance should ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... they may be able to talk statecraft there; how princely compacts and contracts of marriage are made at sulphur springs; all these and such like leaked out as small-talk with a young and pretty woman, whose frivolity of manner went bail for the safety of the confidence, and went far to persuade Walpole, that though bank-stock might be a surer investment, there were paying qualities in certain women that in the end promised larger returns than mere money ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... "Frivolity apart, Clarence," remarked the Queen, "I can see already that there is much to be done here before the country can be called really civilised. We must set ourselves to raise the standard by introducing modern ideas—enlighten people's minds, and ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... servant—Alfy was really that, of course—to a Maitland party. Yet the child had just as good blood in her veins as many others who would attend, even if her lot in life were less fortunate. Besides, was it right to disturb her quiet habits by such frivolity? While the matter was pending, Alfaretta could only calm her perturbed mind by gathering every belated daisy she could find and testing her fortune upon its white petals. "Shall I be let to go? Shall I not?" Mostly, the ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... even ignorant of its existence, but to whom I was personally bound to give some answer as to the book and its worth. It was making many unsettled and unhappy; it was (even worse) pandering to the cynicism and frivolity of many who were already too cynical and frivolous; and, much as I shrank from descending into the arena of religious controversy, I felt bound to say a few plain words on it, at least ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... moral resolution. True, I burst into tears once more, but they were no longer tears of despair. Pulling myself together, I set about writing out a fresh set of rules, in the assured conviction that never again would I do a wrong action, waste a single moment on frivolity, or alter the rules which I now ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... three foul corruptors of a language: caprice, affectation, and ignorance! Such fashionable cant terms as "theatricals," and "musicals," invented by the flippant Topham, still survive among his confraternity of frivolity. A lady eminent for the elegance of her taste, and of whom one of the best judges, the celebrated Miss Edgeworth, observed to me, that she spoke the purest and most idiomatic English she had ever heard, threw out an observation which might be extended to a great deal ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... more than despised—even hated! It is a sad truth, that there is something in the solemn aspect of ancient architecture which, in rebuking frivolity and chastening gayety, has become at this time literally repulsive to a large majority of the population of Europe. Examine the direction which is taken by all the influences of fortune and of fancy, wherever they concern themselves with art, and it will be found that the real, earnest effort of ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... as if turned into a desert. The room in the attic, with its bed, its desk, and its altar, suddenly became a terrible place, like a body from which the soul has fled. Every feature of it gave him pain, and he hurried back with Mona to the frivolity of Anne in her villa ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... phases of his character, and supply the elements deficient in his constitution. While she in turn needs his executiveness, his dignity, his seriousness and positive elements to balance her tendency to frivolity, and make her accomplishments and versatility valuable. Recognizing, each in the other, characteristics indispensable to happiness, amiable association and financial success is assured, while the offspring is sure to inherit an excellently well ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor
... began to talk of the life in the capital, the condition of the army and the Confederate States, furnishing a continual surprise to Prescott, who now saw that beneath the man's occasional frivolity and epicurean tastes lay a mind of wonderful penetration, possessing that precious quality generally known as insight. He revealed a minute knowledge of the Confederacy and its chieftains, both civil ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler |
