"Naughtiness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... badly lest they should be mistaken for scriveners; but most of them, then as now, wrote badly because they could not write any better. In short, the whole range of Shakespear's foibles: the snobbishness, the naughtiness, the contempt for tradesmen and mechanics, the assumption that witty conversation can only mean smutty conversation, the flunkeyism towards social superiors and insolence towards social inferiors, the easy ways with ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... absorb other similar centres, was thus laid. Lawyers, versed in the study of Roman law, flocked into such centres; a tenacious and ambitious race of men issued from among the burgesses, who equally hated the naughtiness of the lords and what they called the lawlessness of the peasants. The very forms of the village community, unknown to their code, the very principles of federalism were repulsive to them as "barbarian" inheritances. Caesarism, ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... enthusiastic pilgrims ever started in such high feather to see a dramatic and terpsichorean feast as did we. There was an expression of mystery and expectancy on every face. Mary Garden and all she does would be a mere flea bite to what we should see of pure and simple naughtiness. But alack and alas for our blasted hopes and the human weakness that had been worked on by the adroit press agent! The show was a "fake:" there was nothing naughty about it—and very little that was ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... means perfect, for which let us be thankful; because a perfect child would be an unnatural thing, whom none of us could quite believe in or understand! Eyebright was a dear little girl, and for all her occasional naughtiness, had plenty of lovable qualities about her; and I am glad to say she was not often so ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... her brothers and sister; for the fact is, the other three little Delaneys had not yet got the slightest idea into their heads that they were bound to obey Mrs. Dolman. Far from this; a sudden and extreme naughtiness had taken possession of their unruly little hearts. Even Iris' gentle words had no effect on them. They hated Aunt Jane; considering her, in their heart of hearts, extremely cruel and unworthy of affection. Had she ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... had lessons alone with his detested tutor, and his relief from the panic fear of the morning raised his spirits to a degree that unfortunately found vent in what was, for him, extreme naughtiness. He drew a comic picture of his tutor—it really was rather like—with a scroll coming out of his mouth, and on the scroll the words, "Because I am ugly I need not be hateful!" His tutor, who had a nasty way of ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... with a genial hail. Bess Harley, who toiled along beside her chum, said with a flashing smile and an imp-light of naughtiness in either black eye: ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... woods, and as she quoted "Wood-Notes" to him and pointed out to him the delicate splendors of the polished green, the clear, cold pink, on a background of gray rock, Imogen could but feel her little naughtiness well justified. It was delightful to be there in solitude with Sir Basil, and the sense of sympathy that grew between her and this supplanter of her father's was strange, but not unsweet. It wasn't only that she could help him, and ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... friends was John Ruskin,* and one can well imagine how much they must have had in common. Of Miss Mitford's writings Ruskin says, 'They have the playfulness and purity of the "Vicar of Wakefield" without the naughtiness of its occasional wit, or the dust of the world's great road on the other side of the ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... the spoiled child that he was, he ceased from one naughtiness only to plunge into another and worse one. As Kate dropped to the bench, he looked at ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... take up the morsel of naughtiness, called Katie, in her thumb and finger, shake it, and carry it out. But there was a twinkle in the little one's eye that might mean mischief; she did not ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... little daughter but it seemed as if this only made her worse. Both father and mother were in despair about her. Klara seemed to be growing steadily worse and worse. And, indeed, lately, she had added to her naughtiness by threatening to ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... helping him to reach up and touch the hot thing? I tell you, if you did that it would mean that you cared a great sight more about him than if you just slapped him and put it out of his reach; and yet, you see, you'd be helping him to do the wrong thing just because you wanted to take the naughtiness out of his heart, not because you were a devil that wanted him to be naughty. Well, you see, between us and our children" (Toyner was talking as men do who get hold of truth, not as an individual, but as mankind) "it's not the same ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... old, Miss Lehzen was placed about me, and though she was most kind, she was very firm and I had a proper respect for her. I was naturally very passionate, but always most contrite afterwards. I was taught from the first to beg my maid's pardon for any naughtiness or rudeness towards her; a feeling I have ever retained, and think every one should own their fault in a kind way to any one, be he or she the lowest—if one has been rude to or injured them by word or deed, especially those below you. People will readily forget an insult or an ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... her face away. There were tears in her eyes, and she did not like to look at those little white fingers, which she was almost afraid would never have the natural, childish naughtiness ...
— Little Prudy's Sister Susy • Sophie May
... amusing the restless little girl who kept the family in a fever of anxiety by her pranks. He never laughed at her mishaps and mistakes, never played tricks upon her like a certain William, who composed the most trying nicknames, and wickedly goaded the wild visitor into all manner of naughtiness. Christy stood up for her through everything; let her ride the cows, feed the pigs, bang on the piano, and race all over the spice mill, feasting on cinnamon and cloves; brought her down from housetops and fished her out of brooks; ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... what we bid you, your brother is safe," she said, in a voice of quiet decision. "He is quite at our mercy, and will be well cared for, if you are good. Any naughtiness on your part will only injure him. The moment you misbehave he will be turned into the streets, to find his way home as best he can. He will be brought to you in a week if you have not been the cause of his being lost ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... most hateful to the cripple and the hunchback. As she stood in the doorway, there was a look of almost stern disapproval on her face, though the eyes softened with the tenderness of a woman watching the gracious naughtiness ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... be children this Christmas. Of course, when I say to anyone, 'You must be like a child,' I mean a good child. A naughty child is not a child as long as his naughtiness lasts. He is not what God meant when He said, 'I will make a child.' Think of the best child you know—the one who has filled you with most admiration. It is his child-likeness that has so delighted you. It is ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... allow the nephew was the best behaved, though it made me savage to hear Fulk say so. But our Ally's was not real naughtiness—only the consequence of our not being able to keep up discipline, while we lived in dread of that seventh year that might rob us of our ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... talking. Maudie grew quite bright again, and I think the excitement kept her from catching cold. Serry, for a wonder, was the quietest of all. She told me afterwards that she was more thankful than she could say that her naughtiness hadn't done Maud any harm, and she told it all to mother—all of her own self. I think that was good of her. The only thing she kept up her mischief about was that she never has ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... her education had not been of the kind calculated to enable her to control them. She had been, pampered and petted, and had been accustomed to have every desire gratified. One day the name of the "Introduction-house" madame came up in conversation at a lady friend's house, and the naughtiness of the topic was discussed with the freedom characteristic of progressive society ladies, safe from intrusive masculine ears. A few days after, she ordered a cab and drove to the house in question. She was received with empressement, and informed that it was not necessary to explain the nature ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... feel tired, sometimes not till nearly midnight; and they are not worried about getting their boots and their clothes wet, because no Norwegian troubles his or her head about such matters. Moreover, the life is such a simple one that perhaps there is little opportunity for real naughtiness. ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... let us now hear what he has to say. As if he himself were entirely unconcerned in the matter, instead of having been the chief culprit, he speaks of "cool effrontery;" "magisterial assumption, towards a parcel of naughty boys caught in their naughtiness;" "most discreditable;" "the epithet outrageous is hardly too strong." Here his breath fails him, and, fortunately for me, the climax ends. And this, we are asked to believe, is not loud and boisterous but gentle and calm: it is in fact ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... answer: 'What, O lady, is the name you bear?' To which she: 'Know that my friends call be Happiness, but they that hate me have their own nicknames (34) for me, Vice and Naughtiness.' ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... his victim with a tender concern that made him feel as if the convulsive throes that passed through his frame were felt equally in his own. There was a murmuring from the youth's lips which seemed to Septimius swift, soft, and melancholy, like the voice of a child when it has some naughtiness to confess to its mother at bedtime; contrite, pleading, yet trusting. So it continued for a few minutes; then there was a sudden start and struggle, as if he were striving to rise; his eyes met those of Septimius with a wild, troubled gaze, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... alarm watched the great Thomas Batchgrew struggle unsuccessfully with the handle of the door that imprisoned him. Mrs. Tams was a born serf, and her nature was such that she wanted to apologize to Thomas Batchgrew for the naughtiness of the door. For her there was something monstrous in a personage like Thomas Batchgrew being balked in a desire, even for a moment, by a perverse door-catch. Not that she really respected Thomas Batchgrew! ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... praise indeed, when placed side by side with his dismissal of the women of Hamburg. They are plump, we are told, "but the little god Cupid is to blame, who often sets the sharpest of love's darts to his bow, but from naughtiness or clumsiness shoots too low, and hits the women of Hamburg not in the heart but ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... any sugar old man Bean, overborne with a sense of naughtiness and disobedience, like a child, carried home to his wife to ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... she was, had been informed of the success of Tom's naughtiness—not indeed till after it was over, when there was nothing to be done but to shake her head and laugh; and now she explained so that her son came to a better understanding of ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... John, whom you know only as a man six feet high, in that little lad on the left side of the picture with a battledore for a fiddle. They had a great deal of what he called excellent fun, though I am afraid it sometimes bordered upon mischief or naughtiness. I used to consider that he and his schoolfellows were regular heroes as I listened to his stories when he came home for the holidays; and even now I must confess I cannot help laughing when I think of some of his ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... am I now To grace thy naughtiness by showing pain. My Delphis 'owns the brains and presence too That make a Pericles!' ... (the words are thine) Had he but the will; and has he now? Good Damon, tell ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... satiety. As it is, I have selected but a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of the fifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princes were made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. There was no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choice of an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion and guarded watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them except in church was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... Carbonel was driving the phaeton, with his wife in it, home from Elchester; when, just as they were passing Todd's house, a terrible scream was heard. Shrieks that did not mean naughtiness but agony; and a flame was visible within the door. In one moment the captain was over the wicket, past the lurcher, dragging with him his great old military cloak, which had been over Mary's knees. Another second, and he had wrapped little Hoglah in it from top to toe, ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in the crook of my knees? Had he rested there for the last time? With a groan I thrust the thought from me, but always it returned, leering hideously. Miserably I recited his qualities—his love for me, his mettle, his beauty, his unfailing good humour.... What naughtiness there was in him seemed very precious. Painfully I remembered his thousand pretty ways. He had a trick of waving his little paws, when he was tired ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... would be nice to see the Motherkin's kind face and hear her pleasant voice. But how should she explain her naughtiness, her make-believe sickness; and how, above all, should she find her way back? A few tears of repentance and real sorrow rained down awhile, and then Laura, who was no coward, made up her mind that she would tell the Motherkin the truth, and that she ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... the room; thus she found the little boy Carl again; laughed full-throated and secretly cried over him, as his sternness passed into a wistful obedience. He was not quite the same impudent boy whose naughtiness she had loved. But the good child who came in his place did trust her so, depend ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... presage mischief. It was not difficult to interpret Mary's intentions, and Bowers was fully aware that it was his duty either to warn the sleeper or reprimand Mary. His eyes, however, had the fondness of a doting parent who takes a secret pride in his offspring's naughtiness as he watched Mary. He did not like the stranger, anyhow, and the incident ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... Nevertheless, the arrangement of a separate nursery has its disadvantages. Nurses are sometimes not sufficiently educated to have much appreciation of the mental processes of the child. If the children are restless and nervous they are content to attribute this to naughtiness or to constipation, or to some other physical ailment. Their time is usually so fully occupied that they cannot be expected to be very zealous in reading books on the management of children. Nevertheless, in practical matters of detail a good nurse will learn rapidly from a mother who has given some ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... Posterity has always felt a certain tenderness for the unfortunate woman who was raised so high and then cast down so suddenly. She was not virtuous, she was not strong, she was not even very beautiful. Her wrong-doing was like the naughtiness of household pets, impulsive but not malicious, deceitful but without rancor, determined but quickly deprecated. For this reason her misfortune has veiled her weakness and softened the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... secondary school, and the university, until it is an adult, you will produce, not a self-reliant, free, fully matured human being, but a grown-up schoolboy or schoolgirl, capable of nothing in the way of original or independent action except outbursts of naughtiness in the women and blackguardism in the men. That is exactly what we get at present in our rich and consequently governing classes: they pass from juvenility to senility without ever touching maturity except in body. The ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... inspecting my clothes. They're rather funny human beings, those sisters of ours. How do you suppose they ever happened anyhow? How do you suppose they came to be so good and you and I so naughty? I mention your naughtiness, Amzi, just to ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... did it seem applicable to a young man who had spent a quiet winter in Rome with his mother. But Cecil, since his engagement, had taken to affect a cosmopolitan naughtiness which he was ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... against the marauding Bedouin. And this population could easily increase to the three millions of the Exodus, at the same ratio in which the population of the United States is now increasing; so that it is a mere superfluity of naughtiness for the bishop to deny what the sacred historian so emphatically asserts: "That the people were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and the land was filled with them." But the bishop utterly ignores the people of the clan, and taking his slate ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... of God hath ordained, and it is His pleasure, that the seven planets should have influence on the world, and bear dominion over man's nature, giving him divers inclinations to sin and naughtiness of life: nevertheless the Universal Creator has not taken from him the free will, which, as it is well governed, may subdue and abolish these temptations by virtuous living, if men will use discretion."—Tirant lo Blanch (1460), ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... a good whipping, and left him looking as meek as a baby, all cuddled up in a little bunch, with his head in his hands as if crying for his naughtiness. But he wasn't sorry. Oh, dear, no! for in half an hour he had picked every one of the sweet peas Aunt Jane was so fond of, thrown all the tomatoes over the fence, and let the parrot out of his cage. The sight of Polly walking into ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... make the VIOLETS clean," carolled Mary blithely. Mrs. Jimmy Milgrave, whose pew was just in front of the manse pew, turned suddenly and looked the child over from top to toe. Mary, in a mere superfluity of naughtiness, stuck out her tongue at Mrs. Milgrave, ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Lady Mariamne, with a giggle, "did you ever know anything like those girls? They are not afraid of anything. Now, when I was a girl—don't you remember what an innocent dear I was, Mr. Tatham?—like a lamb; never suspecting that there was any naughtiness in the world——" ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... though he was much worried at his new pet's naughtiness, he enjoyed his pranks like ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... he held a small piece of looking glass in the sunlight. The flash almost blinded the poor old crow's eyes, and at first he couldn't tell who had done it. But naughtiness will always out, and the next ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... worshipping of God; that we despise all good deeds; that we use no discipline of virtue, no laws, no customs; that we esteem neither right, nor order, nor equity, nor justice; that we give the bridle to all naughtiness, and provoke the people to all licentiousness and lust; that we labour and seek to overthrow the state of monarchies and kingdoms, and to bring all things under the rule of the rash inconstant people and unlearned multitude; that we have seditiously fallen from ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... Dermot did not keep that reputation much longer than his petticoats. Ere long he was a pickle of the first order, equalling the sublime naughtiness of Holiday House, and was continually being sent home by private tutors, who could not manage him. All the time I had a secret conviction that, if he had been my own mother's son, she could have managed him, and he would never have even wished to do what she disapproved; but Lady Diana had ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were to be kept in as a punishment for the misfortunes of the day before. Of course Martha thought it was naughtiness, and not misfortune - so you must not blame her. She only thought she was doing her duty. You know grown-up people often say they do not like to punish you, and that they only do it for your own good, and that it hurts them ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... fearing that, if the whole law were made manifest and laid open to the knowledge of such as are interested in it, and the learned books of the ancient doctors of the law upon the exposition of the Twelve Tables and Praetorian Edicts, his villainous pranks, naughtiness, and vile impiety should come to the public notice of the world. Therefore were it better, in my conceit, that is to say, less inconvenient, that parties at variance in any juridical case should in the dark march upon caltrops than submit the determination of what is their right to such ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... in her of girlish pertness and ignorance with the promise of a remarkable general capacity, made her a most taking, provoking creature. Mrs. Thornburgh—much recovered in mind since Dr. Baker had praised the pancakes by which Sarah had sought to prove to her mistress the superfluity of naughtiness involved in her recourse to foreign cooks—watched the young man and maiden with a face which grew more and more radiant. The conversation in the garden had not pleased her. Why should people always talk of Catherine; Mrs. Thornburgh stood in awe of Catherine and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all your griefs and pleasures you were sure of finding her ready and willing to feel with you and for you, and to help you if she could? And in all the times you have seen her tired, no fatigue ever wore out her patience, nor any naughtiness of yours ever lessened her love; she could not be weary of waiting upon you when you were sick, nor of bearing with you when you forgot your duty,—more ready always to receive you than you to return. Isn't ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... them as the Swedenborgians commonly are, and he probably acknowledged a measure of verity in the spiritistic phenomena; but he seemed rather incurious concerning them, and he must have regarded them as superfluities of naughtiness, mostly; as emanations from the hells. His powerful and penetrating intellect interested itself with all social and civil facts through his religion. He was essentially religious, but he was very consciously a citizen, with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... place to try to make clear the importance of such secrecy and confidence between parents and child. There is a secrecy which adds a glamour of pleasurable naughtiness, leading straight to prudery and pruriency with all their consequences. Such secrecy is the sort that develops when parents do take the child into their confidence. Such harmful secrecy is not to be confounded with the confidence between parent ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various
... glory. I say, to consider the precious promises; to believe the excellency and virtue of Jesus Christ, and love him in your souls, and delight in him, is the weightiest matter of the gospel. To go out of yourselves daily into his fulness, to endeavour new discoveries of your own naughtiness and his grace, this is the new and great commandment of the gospel. The obedience of it is the most essential part of a Christian walk. Now, again, to know that ye do believe, and to discern your interest in Christ, this is but a matter of comfort and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... think this is partly due to the amount of exercise we took. When picturing my childhood I always see myself racing about, jumping walls, climbing trees. In France and Italy I have been struck by the greater sedateness of Continental children. Our idea of naughtiness consisted chiefly in having suppers in our bedrooms and sliding down the banisters after being sent to bed. The first gratified our natural appetite, while the second supplied the necessary thrill in the fear of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... on the "cop" at Chester, and about the Greek letter that he did not send to the Bishop of Bangor, in the preliminary part of the Confessions. The first is the more teasing, because with a quite elvish superfluity of naughtiness he has here indulged in a kind of double rigmarole about the woman and the "bore" in the river, and flits from one to the other, and from the other to the one (his main story standing still the while), for half a dozen pages, till the reader feels as Coleridge's auditors must ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... the Jews have their vices: no wonder if it were proved (which it has not hitherto appeared to be) that some of them have a bad pre-eminence in evil, an unrivalled superfluity of naughtiness. It would be more plausible to make a wonder of the virtues which have prospered among them under the shadow of oppression. But instead of dwelling on these, or treating as admitted what any hardy or ignorant person may deny, let us found simply on the loud assertions of the hostile. The ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... naughtiness could feel at home in this spot. Who draws such a rebuke upon himself? (He looks towards the sound. In surprise.) It is a child, but no child in strength. And two hermit-women are trying to ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... tone. As she took her place at the tea-table, she wondered within herself what was the matter with her eyes to cause such remarks, and still more why she could not help liking Lionel so much the best of her cousins, in spite of all the naughtiness of word and deed, which shocked her ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... at Mrs. Shepton with the childish air of one both hungry for gossip and conscious of the naughtiness ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... minutes ago. Compared with him, as he stood beside her bed, Ally looked more than ever like a small child, a child vibrating with shyness and fear, a child that implacable adult authority has found out in foolishness and naughtiness; so evident was it to Ally that to Rowcliffe nothing was ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... years old, a dear, good, patient little girl, who bore with Flaxie's naughtiness, and hardly ever complained. But this afternoon, at four o'clock, her best friend, Eva Snow, was coming, and Ninny did hope that by that time her mamma would be at ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... Richards," answered Mrs. Curtis coldly. But Madge could see that she was dreadfully vexed at Tania's latest naughtiness. ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers
... was. The girl was enchanting in her ignorance. The youth—to Artois the Marchesino seemed almost a boy, indeed, often quite a boy—was admirable in his precocity. He embodied Naples, its gay furberia, and yet that was hardly the word—perhaps rather one should say its sunny naughtiness, its reckless devotion to life purged of thought. And Vere—what did she embody? Not Sicily, though she was in some ways so Sicilian. Not ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... stirr'd Against the youth: for (as he thought) Things out of his young reach he sought. Said he, "What mov'd thee to come here, To question warlike men? say, where And in whose care are those few sheep, That in the wilderness you keep? I know thy thoughts, how proud thou art: In the naughtiness of thy heart, Hoping a battle thou mayst see, Thou comest ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... the motif is one and the same. If we judge Mrs. Behn's dramatic output in the only fair way by comparing it legitimately with the theatre of her age, we simply shall not find that superfluity of naughtiness the critics lead us to expect and deplore. There are not infrequent scenes of Dryden, of Wycherley, of Vanbrugh, Southerne, Otway, Ravenscroft, Shadwell, D'Urfey, Crowne, full as daring as anything Aphra wrote; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... led to these reflections by the memory of Aubrey Beardsley, and the reception which his work received, not from the British public, but from the inner circle of advanced intellectuals. Too much occupied with the obstetrics of art, his superfluity of naughtiness has tarnished his niche in the temple of fame. 'A wish to epater le bourgeois,' says Mr. Arthur Symons, 'is a natural one.' I do not think so; at least, in an artist. Now much of Beardsley's work shows the eblouissement of the burgess on arriving at Montmartre for the ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... certain number of pheasants and other game to the absent family and their friends every now and then, and this duty was his pretext. There was plenty of shooting to be got elsewhere, but the spice of naughtiness about this was alluring. To reach that part of the wood where it was proposed to shoot the shortest way ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... of a surety, in spite of thy great naughtiness. Art thou some fallen spirit, doomed to be hunted for thy sins in this life, and in some future life rewarded for thy swiftness, and grace, and cunning, by being made a very messenger of the immortals? ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... sheets—already the chamber-maid had complained of finding the sheets knotted round the bed-posts. He was singing a song to himself as he played. Jean could hear his voice crooning. The sound filled her with an immense tenderness. Little Mhor with his naughtiness and his endearing ways! And beloved Jock with his gruff voice and surprised blue eyes, so tender hearted, so easily affronted. And David—the dear companion of her childhood who had shared with her all the pleasures and penalties of life ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... capering around and around, her long curls rumpled about her determined, flushed face, and her feet not still an instant in her flapping night-drawers. Many and many a time you escaped punishment, Beth, because you were so very comical even in your naughtiness." ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine
... go into the drapery, but Tom would not. Tom wanted to be an artist; he was always drawing. Mr. Knight had only heard of artists; he had never seen one. He thought Tom's desire for art was mere wayward naughtiness. However, after Tom had threatened to burn the house down if he was not allowed to go to an art-school, and had carried out his threat so far as to set fire to a bale of cotton-goods in the cellar, Mr. Knight yielded to the whim for the sake of peace and a low temperature. He expansively predicted ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... fellow, before whom he must be at the pains of being continually on his guard. He wished him a hundred miles away. However, there was no refusing Valencia anything; so he got his hat, but with so bad a grace, that Valencia saw his chagrin, and from mere naughtiness of heart amused herself with it by talking all the way of nothing ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... shop door, heard the words. She felt almost inclined to run forward and beg leave to go in too. But she knew she must first ask pardon of her mother for her naughtiness, and the idea of doing so before Mrs. Fairchild was ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth
... without her. When she walks in the street, where mostly she drives, she walks with her eyes straight before her; to look either to the right or left, especially if a man is on either hand, is a superfluity of naughtiness. The habit of looking straight ahead is formed in youth, and it continues through life; so at least it is said, and if I cannot affirm it I will not deny it. The beautiful black eyes so discreetly directed looked as often from mantillas as hats, even in Madrid, which is the capital, ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... self-possessed, and went about the house assisting her mother ably, despite the tendency to sob, which she found it very difficult to overcome. But the baby behaved in the most shameful and outrageous manner. His naughtiness is almost indescribable. The instant the door opened, and his father's bloody face was presented to view, baby set up a roar so tremendous that a number of dogs in the neighbourhood struck in with a loud chorus, and the black kitten, startled out of an innocent slumber, rushed ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... Being found well pleasing unto God he was beloved of him, and while living among sinners he was translated. He was caught away lest wickedness should change his understanding, or guile deceive his soul; for the bewitching of naughtiness bedimmeth the things which are good, and the giddy whirl of desire perverteth an innocent mind. Being made perfect in a little while he fulfilled long years: for his soul was pleasing unto the Lord; therefore hasted he out of the midst ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... resting, you could feel naughtiness coming on. Then Pidgeon carried you on his back to the calf-shed; or Mrs. Fisher took you up into her ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... 'Hear me, thou who yesterday didst come in thy godhead to our house, and badest me go in a ship across the misty seas, to seek tidings of the return of my father that is long gone: but all this my purpose do the Achaeans delay, and mainly the wooers in the naughtiness ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... seeking to keep her babes asleep? "Hush, you careless wayfarer; do not waken them. Walk lighter; they are so tired, these myriad children of mine, sleeping in my thousand arms. They are over-worked and over-worried; so many of them are sick, so many fretful, many of them, alas, so full of naughtiness. But all of them so tired. Hush! they worry me with their noise and riot when they are awake. They are so good now they are asleep. Walk lightly, let ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... with all their mistakes and innocent naughtiness, yet so bright and natural they ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... though they were kept in check by wise and loving influences. To command seemed more natural to her than to obey, and far more pleasant, and this often caused trouble to herself and others. True, nothing could be more thorough than her repentance after a fit of naughtiness, for she was a very affectionate child; but then she was quite ready on the next occasion to repeat the offence—as ready as Mrs Vallance was to forgive it. Mary was vain, too, as well as wilful; but this was not astonishing, for from a very little child she had ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... was greatly shocked, and unable to understand such naughtiness, rang the bell and ordered Sophie to take the child away, and Bunny was carried off weeping bitterly. But this fit of anger only made her mama more anxious to have some one to look after her daughter, and in a few days the governess arrived, and Bunny was set ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... they may reveal to the reader something of the mentality which wrote this book. A mentality somewhat alien to the English, since it was profoundly interested in women without incurring any suspicion of French naughtiness, or endeavouring in any way to make itself pleasing to them. A mentality hampered by an almost hysterical shyness which, however, was capable of swift and complete evaporation in ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... sort." Pauline was smiling, but restrainedly, and much as a woman does in condoning the naughtiness of her child. ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... righteousness of man is not of any esteem with God, as to justification. It is passed by as a thing of naughtiness, a thing not worth the taking notice of. There was not so much as notice taken of the Pharisee's person or prayer, because he came into the temple mantled up in ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... mother's lightest word, but Dame Neforis, too; and, since her own Greek instructress had been dismissed, even the acid Eudoxia. She had never concealed from her mother, or the worthy teacher whom she had truly loved, the smallest breach of rules, the least naughtiness or wilful act of which she had been guilty; nay, she had never been able to rest till she had poured out a confession, before evening prayer, of all that her little heart told her was not perfectly right, to some one whom she loved, and obtained full forgiveness. Night after night the "Water-wagtail" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... about—disobeys all the time. Every day there is some fresh disaster and fresh chastisement. Two weeks ago he was all but run over by the big station motor—pulled out from the wheels in the nick of time; that scar across his forehead will remain for life, a memento of childish naughtiness. Alberto understands me thoroughly. He is glad to see me. But a certain formality must be gone through; every time we meet there is a moment of shy distrust, while the ice has to be broken afresh—he ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... them comfortably, is carried to a still further development. I am prepared to be told that the whole philosophy is horribly immoral; perhaps it is; but the play, certainly, is not. It is vastly amusing, its naughtiness is so naive, so tactfully frank, that even the American daughter might take her mother to see it, without fear of corrupting the innocence of age. "On peut tres bien vivre sans etre la plus heureuse des femmes": that is one of the morals of the piece; and, the ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... never be in a garden without expecting to see him stalk down a path," she said. She told him how she had read to him about the boy Theodore with his charm and his naughtiness and his Scotch name. How there had been no word from Robert Halarkenden when she finished, and how, suddenly, she had been aware of a quality in the silence which startled her, and she had looked up sharply. How, as she looked, ...
— August First • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray
... four, five," said Flaxie to herself, counting the rosebuds in the carpet. Strange her mamma should suppose she wanted to talk about it! Why, there wasn't a subject in the world so disagreeable as her own naughtiness! ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May
... But his naughtiness oppressed him for many days and he intrigued; and it came to pass that Enoch was asked to contest a Welsh constituency, and Enoch immediately let fall ...
— My Neighbors - Stories of the Welsh People • Caradoc Evans
... the four. Sterne's Journey unquestionably had the most. The tenant of "Shandy Hall," as was customary in the first heyday of "Anglomania," went to Paris to ratify his successes, and the resounding triumph of his naughtiness there, by a reflex action, secured the vote of London. Posterity has fully sanctioned this particular "judicium Paridis." The Sentimental Journey is a book sui generis, and in the reliable kind of popularity, which ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... from which another harvest of precisely such dark fruitage as I saw ripened around me was to be produced. Of course, you would imagine these to be lumps of crude iniquity, tiny vessels as full as they could hold of naughtiness; nor can I say a great deal to the contrary. Small proof of parental discipline could I discern, save when a mother (drunken, I sincerely hope) snatched her own imp out of a group of pale, half-naked, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thy heart, for thou art come down that thou mightest ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... accordingly in this medley. This has been done under feelings of duty, believing that, as we are called with a high and holy calling, and forbidden to adorn these bodies, but to wear the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, as we have ourselves laid aside these superfluities of naughtiness, so we should not in any measure contribute to the destroying of others, knowing that we shall be called to give an account of the deeds ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... "elect;" and that their faith and prayers were not sufficient to remove mountains, and to conquer and subdue every obstacle. There was more pride in these expectations than they were willing to allow, or even to suspect; and in many it was the very pride and "naughtiness of their hearts;" whilst in others it was but the operation of remaining ignorance, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... bliss. She could feel herself dissolving. Her pleasure was terrible. It was true that she had left Paris without saying good-bye to Musa. She had done it on purpose. Why? She did not know. Perhaps out of naughtiness, perhaps.... She was aware that she could be hard, like her father. But she was glad, intensely glad, that she had left Paris so, because the result had been this avowal. She, Audrey, little Audrey, scarcely yet convinced ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... can do with him," said Richard. "Papa had better not hear it now, at any rate. He is very tired and sad this evening! and his arm is painful again, so we must not worry him with histories of naughtiness among ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... only a year, looked like her mother—sweet, very practical, always in a wide-eyed condition of surprise at Suzanna's wonderful imagination; a dependable little body who rarely fell from grace by reason of naughtiness. ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... do you think the little fellow said?—'Don't kill me, papa,' he cried. 'I will be good. Don't, please, be hanged for my naughtiness! Whip me, and ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... like condition, have the compelling effect of unsentimental truth. Few clouds of glory, for example, trail about the protagonists of "A Day," a tribute to the joyous intoxication of a day-long orgie of naughtiness deliberate and wholly unrepented. You will find much in these pages to waken half-forgotten and perhaps secret pleasures. Thus there was for me a personal echo in the rejection as a seaside entertainment of castle-building and the ordered sequence of the tides in favour of the infinitely more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... Rachel had been, we'd see why they never wanted to think of those hours again! And when I chanced to mention that to-night would be full moon—the night of nights when the Sphinx and the Ghizeh Pyramids held their court—Monny begged to have the bad taste of her naughtiness taken out of her mouth by a dinner at Mena House. We might dine early, and plunge into the desert later, when the moon was high. Of course, I proposed that all should be my guests—all except "Antoun" who, though recognized as a gentleman of Egypt, was considered by Miss Gilder ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... what could be done in furtherance thereof, I have no one to consult in these affairs. Therefore, as a man may do worse things, the plain English of all which is, that I am going to leave a few poor sheep in the wilderness for fourteen days, and from pride and naughtiness of heart to go see what is doing at Scarborough, steadfully meaning afterwards to lead a new life and strengthen my faith. Now, some folks say there is much company there, and some say not; and I believe ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... encouraging); and before the natural outbursts of impatience on the part of his father he could always, in his childhood's days, run for protection behind the short skirts of his sister Winnie. On the other hand, he might have been suspected of hiding a fund of reckless naughtiness. When he had reached the age of fourteen a friend of his late father, an agent for a foreign preserved milk firm, having given him an opening as office-boy, he was discovered one foggy afternoon, in his chief's absence, busy letting ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... remorseful as time went on and everybody was so kind to her, seeming never to remember her naughtiness and disgrace, but giving her a share in all the pleasures devised for themselves which ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... he dictated? If you know where to look, you can see its prototype seven times a week. It was written jocularly; oh, it was exceedingly funny with all sorts of veiled references to naughtiness that couldn't be printed, pretty naughtiness, you understand, the kind you wink at, as was to be expected from a little beauty, a brunette, chic, etc. (I forget how many French words Bat tucked in: he had to look 'em up in the French-English ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... marriage. It is impossible to go through the whole list of the "Tales"; but all may be truly said to be in keeping with the characters and manners (often equally indifferent) of their tellers—down to that of the "Nun's Priest," which, brimful of humour as it is, has just the mild naughtiness about it which comes so drolly from a spiritual ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... trousers, petticoats, shirts, pinafores, hats, bonnets, all sorts of children's gear, masculine and feminine, together with spelling books, copy books, ivory alphabets, dissected maps, dolls, toys, and gingerbread, for the same small people. There she sat a careful mother, fretting over their naughtiness and their ailments; always in fear of the sun, or the wind, or the rain, of their running to heat themselves, or their standing still to catch cold: not a book in the house fit for a person turned of eight years old! not a grown up idea! not a thought beyond the nursery! One wondered what she ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... aunt sat down on the foot of the bed and drew the girl towards her, putting her motherly arm round the little figure, and smoothing the ruffled hair. Mrs. Rowles went on to explain to Juliet the great danger which she had run, and the extreme naughtiness of flat disobedience; and all the while Juliet stood with a calm face and silent manner, so that her aunt thought she was penitent. But this quietness was caused by her having so fully made up her mind as to what she would do next. She let Mrs. Rowles speak on, and appeared meek and humble; but ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... and died of a fever, lamenting, too late, that she had been so wicked a daughter to so good a mother!—And so there was a sad end to all the four ungracious children, who never would mind what their poor mother said to them; and God punished their naughtiness as you see!—While the good children I mentioned before, were the glory of their family, and the delight of every body ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... subconscious—such things always are—but I think Ann will some day prove what I say. In a way, it's like the feeling I have for—for my own baby, Lyn. I see him in Bobbie; I feel him in Bobbie's dearness and naughtiness. Ann holds what went before in what is around her now. Sometimes it puzzles her as ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... the bewitching of naughtiness doth obscure things that are honest; and the wandering of concupiscence doth undermine ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... have to be 'Mary Jane,'" retorted Billy, with calm naughtiness, refusing to meet Aunt Hannah's beseechingly reproving eyes. Then suddenly she chuckled. "It would be a combination, wouldn't it? 'Words by Mary Jane Arkwright. Music by Billy Neilson'! We'd have sighing swains writing to 'Dear Miss Arkwright,' telling how touching were ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Greenwich Village, not having fully awakened to the commercial advantages of being a locale, had not yet stretched between itself and the rest of New York that gauzy and iridescent curtain of sprightly impropriety and sparkling intellectual naughtiness, since faded to a lather tawdry pattern. An early pioneer of the Villager type, emancipated of thought and speech, chancing upon No. 11 Grove, would have despised it for its lack of atmosphere and its patent conservatism. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... day from night, it will be found always that the noblest and loveliest women are dutiful and religious by continual nature; and their passions are trained to obey them; like their dogs. Homer, indeed, loves Helen with all his heart, and restores her, after all her naughtiness, to the queenship of her household; but he never thinks of her as Penelope's equal, or Iphigenia's. Practically, in daily life, one often sees married women as good as saints; but rarely, I think, unless they have ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... struck twelve, and she heard her name called in all directions, by JORGINS, the gardener, BRILLIT, the buttons, and long-suffering Miss DUMBELL. They could not find her anywhere, and her Most Serene Naughtiness sat screened by the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... her wet garments. She felt that Dimple's naughtiness had brought its own punishment. "I think Florence has changed her mind about going ...
— A Sweet Little Maid • Amy E. Blanchard
... chance," replied the Lady Superior, coldly. "Thou art the first in all naughtiness, and thy path in life will be stormy if thou dost not curb thy ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... has been scolding or punishing you for some little naughtiness, I suppose," said ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley |
