"Perverseness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with utter consternation and dismay at the perverseness of the two young people, who might have been engaged any time these two years with the full approbation of their families, and now chose the very moment when every one was rejoicing at ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... What a conspiracy between them all, To do or not do, love or hate alike! Not one but has the sex so strong in her, She differs nothing from the rest. Step-mothers All hate their Step-daughters: and every wife Studies alike to contradict her husband, The same perverseness running through them all. Each seems train'd up in the same school of mischief: And of that school, if any such there be, My wife, I think, ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... depraved tendency, Doctor,—this unaccountable perverseness. My dear Sir, I am afraid your school is in the right about human nature. Oh, those words of the Psalmist, 'shapen in iniquity,' and the rest! What are we to do with them,—we who teach that the soul of a child is ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to Mr. Osborn to be published, we should have to extend this novel to such a multiplicity of volumes, as not the most sentimental reader could support; she not only filled large sheets of paper, but crossed them with the most astonishing perverseness, she wrote whole pages out of poetry books without the least pity, the underlined words and passages with quite a frantic emphasis; and in fine gave the usual tokens of her condition. Her letters were full of repetition, she wrote ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... not so wrong who call you wilful, although the name they give you is not kind. Have you ever considered that you stand alone in the world, and that your perverseness must make your sick mother's illness worse to bear, her life more bitter? And what sound reason can you have to give for rejecting an honest hand, stretched out to help you and ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... my experience is that a flirtation generally comes of it, especially when the young woman has no one else to make herself agreeable to, and is, moreover, a little sore with the world in general. I own that at one time I was rather inclined to think that out of sheer perverseness the girl was going to make a fool of herself with that good looking scamp, but since we have been shut up here I have felt easy in my mind about it. And now, if you will take my rifle for ten minutes, I will go down and get a cup of tea; I volunteered ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... when it seemed impossible to him that the charge he had made should so have recoiled and fixed itself upon him; but, by a strange perverseness, thus it was, and, saving by the servant, hardly a ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... absolutely with the queen of Scots, to keep her always in hopes of an accommodation, to negotiate perpetually with her, and still to throw the blame of not coming to any conclusion, either on unforeseen accidents, or on the obstinacy and perverseness of others. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... and if this motion ever chances to intermit, he cries out miracle! and would offer a prize to the genius that can satisfactorily explain so marvellous a phenomenon. He is the best fellow under the sun; but all my painstaking to break him of this perverseness is utterly vain and thrown away; and if I would not earn sorry thanks for my good intentions, I must even let ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... being so mischievous and ill-natured! What will poor Miss Rose say! To be sure, there is nothing boys won't do; their equals for perverseness don't walk the earth. Though I ought not to speak against them, while there's Master William and Master Edward to contradict me. They are boys, to be sure; but as for that Geoffrey!' And here she shook her head in silence, as if Geoffrey's delinquencies ...
— The Doll and Her Friends - or Memoirs of the Lady Seraphina • Unknown
... during several years, but at length God was pleased to deliver them in a miraculous manner by the hand of Moses, who would soon have conducted them into the promised land, had not their disobedience and perverseness brought upon them the punishment of a forty years' wandering in the wilderness. During this time, God commanded Moses to deliver his laws to the people of Israel. Aaron the brother of Moses was made High Priest, and to him was committed the ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... each feeling that matters were just where they were before. Philip went back to his inn, moralizing on the pride and perverseness which made it impossible to make any impression on a Redclyffe Morville, whom not even the fear of detection could ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whether it is perverseness of state, or old associations, but an excellent and very handsome modern house, which Mr. Howard has lately built at Corby, does not, in my mind, assimilate so well with the scenery as the old irregular monastic hall, with its weather-beaten and antique ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... "Always meet petulance with gentleness, and perverseness with kindness. A gentle hand can lead even an elephant by a hair. Reply to thine enemy with gentleness. Opposition to peace is sin." The Buddhist says, "If a man foolishly does me wrong I will return ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine
... the village, it is expected of him that he shall make the crops thrive and neither tread them down himself nor allow wild pigs to do so. The expectation is reasonable, yet the conduct of the ghost does not always answer to it. Occasionally, whether out of sheer perverseness or simple absence of mind, he will sit down in a field; and wherever he does so, he makes a hollow where the fruits will not grow. Indeed any fruit that he even touches with his foot in passing, shrivels up. Where these things have happened, the people ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... see the ring after this, but Annie was very distant in her manner toward me; her actions showed as plainly as if she had spoken, that she considered me in the light of an unreasonable guardian, who wished to deprive her of all enjoyment. Her giddiness and perverseness caused me much trouble, and I greatly feared she would become reckless after my departure. She was my favorite sister, however, and no matter how she might treat me, I could never lose ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... white males of this city are in a very bad condition; indeed, some of them in such a terrible condition that we are called upon to pass a bill of attainder, or a bill of pains and penalties, and a little ex post facto law in order to reach their tergiversations and perverseness. If that be true, why not incorporate some other element? I do not know much about the female portion of the negroes of this District except what I have seen, and I must confess that although there are a great many ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... they could freely forgive all who had ever offended them, and I can say with truth such has been the effect on my own nerves of the plaintive murmurs of the neela-cobeya, that sometimes, when irritated, and not without reason, by the perverseness of some of my native followers, the feeling has almost instantly subsided into placidity on suddenly hearing the loving tones of these ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... did not welcome the thought; it was an intruder. The fact was that having once made entrance in her mind, the idea only seized opportunities to start up and assert its claims to notice. It was always lying in wait for her now; and on this occasion held its ground with great perverseness. Eleanor glanced again at Dr. Cairnes; no hope of him at present; he was busily engaged with a clever gentleman, a friend of Mr. Carlisle's and an Oxford man, and with Mr. Carlisle himself. Eleanor grew impatient of her thoughts; she wondered if anybody else had such, in ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... comfortable assurance that He will direct my paths concerning this part of my service, as to whether I shall be occupied in it or not. Further: "The integrity of the upright shall preserve them; but the perverseness of fools shall destroy them." Prov. xi. 3. By the grace of God I am upright in this business. My honest purpose is to get glory to God. Therefore. I expect to be guided aright. Further, "Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established." Prov. xvi. ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... stay at Lizerolles, which her perverseness, her resentment, and a repugnance founded on instincts of delicacy, had made her prefer to a journey to Italy, Jacqueline, having nothing better to do, took it into her head to write to her friend Fred. The young man received ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... their numerous perverse and strange defects, to return the orthodox civilities, when they come across any strangers. But should they not return the proper civilities, they should, by no manner of means, be suffered to behave with such perverseness. It's the way that grown-up people doat on them that makes them what they are. And as they can, first and foremost, boast of bewitching good looks and they comport themselves, secondly, towards visitors with all propriety—, in fact, with less ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... a remedy for this perverseness, but not in others—only in himself; least of all in simple increase of wealth and worldly "respectability." We hope we have now heard enough about the efficacy of wealth for poetry and to make poets happy. Nay, have we not seen another instance of it in these very days? Byron, a man ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... large gravy-spoon into the dish, with the most serious results to the table-cloth. For Kezia had not betrayed the reason of Maggie's refusal to come down, not liking to give her mistress a shock in the moment of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thought there was nothing worse in question than a fit of perverseness, which was inflicting its own punishment by depriving Maggie of ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... life is known to all of you. Surely we may say, if discrepancy between place held and place merited constitute perverseness of lot for a man, no lot could be more perverse than Burns's. Among those secondhand acting-figures, mimes for most part, of the Eighteenth Century, once more a giant Original man; one of those men who reach down to the perennial Deeps, who take rank with the Heroic among ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... heredities will carry men further, and some environments will overcome them more quickly; but as surely as effects follow from causes, every heredity will meet disaster in some way under any environment, and the time and kind of disaster it meets depend not upon perverseness or freedom of will, but upon the fortune of the meeting of heredity with the manifold environment that surrounds every life. It must be plain that life lasts only as long as it makes adjustments. That it consists only of adjustments. That, ordinarily, strong heredity ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... other influence at work for this perverseness to keep on so long. Tell me, did she take up with that very goosey girl, that ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bit of common human perverseness that kept Lidgerwood from thanking Judson when the engineer overtook him at the corner of the plaza. Uppermost in his thoughts at the moment was the keen sense of humiliation arising upon the conviction ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Corrichatachin in the Island of Skye, and unable to get out of it because of the rain,—"I was happy when tea came. Such I take it is the state of those who live in the country. Meals are wished for from the cravings of vacuity of mind, as well as from the desire of eating." And such is the perverseness of human nature that Boswell's wisdom delights me even more than Johnson's, though I love them ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... spirits as if they were at my command, or depressed only from perverseness of temper. In these you mistake. Believe me, you cannot wish their return more ardently than I do. I would this moment consent to become a public mendicant, could I be restored to the same tranquillity of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... blessings could but enable, not compel, us to be happy. We wanted that sense, acknowledgement, and value of our own happiness, which all but we had; and we took pains to make, when we could not find ourselves miserable. There was in truth a strange absence of understanding in most, and a strange perverseness of understanding in the rest. The court full of excess, idleness, and luxury; the country full of pride, mutiny, and discontent. Every man more troubled and perplexed at what they called the violation of one law, than delighted or pleased with the observance ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... are perfect in virtue, disinterested, watchful over themselves, inured to mortification by great abstinence, resting on hard beds, and assiduous labor: lastly, what is most rare, dead to themselves by meekness, sweetness, and charity, which no injuries or reproaches, no ingratitude, no perverseness, or malice, can ever weary or overcome: for a perfect victory over anger is a most essential part of the character of a good pastor, without which all his virtues will be tarnished, and he will reap no fruit of his labors. He makes this dreadful ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... manner. Among those who frequented the pump-room, was an old officer, whose temper, naturally impatient, was, by repeated attacks of the gout, which had almost deprived him of the use of his limbs, sublimated into a remarkable degree of virulence and perverseness. He imputed the inveteracy of his distemper to the malpractice of a surgeon who had administered to him, while he laboured under the consequences of an unfortunate amour; and this supposition had inspired him with an insurmountable antipathy ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... litigants. From sundry passages of Scripture it would appear that even angels may disagree as to what is best and proper: angelic men certainly may and do. It is a mistake to look upon civil government, with its apparatus of laws and judgments, simply as a necessary evil, and remedy of the perverseness of mankind. On the contrary, were all men virtuous, States would still be formed, towering in magnificence above the States known to history, as the cedars of Lebanon above the scanty growths of a fell-side ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... perverseness of the world; therefore He admonishes and urges by commandments that every one consider what his parents have done for him and he will find that he has from them body and life, moreover, that he has been fed and reared ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... anthropomorphites, as among atheists) idolaters and anthropomorphites must be as susceptible of all of crimes as atheists, and neither the one set nor the other could form societies, did not a curb, stronger then that of religion, namely human laws, repress their perverseness. If no other remedy were applied to vice than the remonstrances of divines, a great city such as London, would in a fortnight's time, fall into the most horrid disorders. Whatever may be the difference of faith, vice ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him or mistake Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain Through her perverseness, but shall sea her gain'd By a far worse; or it she love, withheld By parents; or his happiest choice too late Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound To a fell adversary, his hate and shame; Which infinite calamity shall cause To human ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Parliament to give Lord Worsley our aid; for a few perches, well hedged and carefully kept, are worth all the rights of pasture, whether of cows, geese, or donkeys, that ever the poor possessed. Inside of this fringe of rustic independencies, snug farm-houses rose up in all directions; but, with a perverseness which seems characteristic of the whole county, and not limited to farm-houses, or even semi-genteel villas, no sooner does a man fix on a nice situation—a rising knoll beside a river—a gentle slope—or beautiful level green—no sooner does he rear a modest, or ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... 2: "Your iniquities separate between you and your God, and your sins hide His face from you that He doth not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity, your lips speak lies, and your tongue meditates perverseness. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood, their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not, and there is no right in their paths; they pervert their paths; whosoever goeth therein ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... blockade,—that Henry the Fourth had been stopping up the avenues to their supply, and Sully thundering with his ordnance at the gates of Paris,—when in reality they are besieged by no other enemies than their own madness and folly, their own credulity and perverseness. But M. Bailly will sooner thaw the eternal ice of his Atlantic regions than restore the central heat to Paris, whilst it remains "smitten with the cold, dry, petrific mace" of a false and unfeeling philosophy. Some time after this speech, that is, on the thirteenth of last August, the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... monarchs of the most cruel oppression and injustice. It is but too true, that the love, and even the very idea, of genuine liberty is extremely rare. It is but too true that there are many whose whole scheme of freedom is made up of pride, perverseness, and insolence. They feel themselves in a state of thraldom, they imagine that their souls are cooped and cabined in, unless they have some man or some body of men dependent on their mercy. This desire of having some one below them descends to those ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... should I,' said the Doctor, with the perverseness of not satisfying expectations ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was thinking of, nor if they did would patiently draw out her thoughts, canvass them, set them right, or show them wrong. No one now could tell what she was feeling, nor had the art sweetly, in a way she scarce knew how, to do away with sadness, or dulness, or perverseness, and leave her spirits clear and bright as the noonday. With all the petting and fondness she had from her new friends, Ellen felt alone. She was petted and fondled as a darling possession—a dear plaything—a thing to be cared for, taught, governed, disposed of, ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... little persuasion. Perverseness, one of the forms or issues of self-pity, made him strive against his desire, and caused him to adopt a tone of acerbity in excess of what he felt; but already he had made up his mind to see Amy. Even if this excuse had not presented itself ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... opium-poisoning, having quack drugs which contain laudanum administered to them. 'In Potchefstroom as at Irene,' says Dr. Kendal Franks, 'the death-rate is attributable not so much to the severity of the epidemic as to the ignorance, perverseness, and dirty habits of the parents themselves.' But whatever the immediate cause the death of these numerous children lies heavy, not upon the conscience, but upon the heart of our nation. It is some mitigation to know that the death-rate among children is normally quite remarkably ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... where the most honourable profession is robbery, where the middling ranks tan hides, and where a wretched poor spin wool and weave coarse mantles." "But I am from Mecca," said the boy. "Then," replied Hyjauje, "thou comest from a mine of perverseness, stupidity, ignorance, and slothfulness; for from among its people God raised up his prophet, whom they disbelieved, rejected, and forced away to a strange nation, who loved, venerated, and assisted him in spite of the men of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... I must do something to feel as if I deserved it. You know it comes to me like a token out of the sea of glass like unto crystal, where they stand that overcome! I think I'll only wear it at night when I think I have done something, or conquered a bit of my perverseness ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... understand reason, just as you would in vain exhibit a curious piece of limning to the blind, or endeavour to bribe, as scripture saith, a sow by the offer of a precious stone. The fault is not, in such case, in the accuracy of your sacred reasoning, but in the obtuseness and perverseness of the barbarians ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... all horrified—not moved with grief, this time, but shocked. It seemed such a repulsive and indelicate step to take. Which it was. And which, in her curious perverseness, Alvina must have intended it to be. Mrs. Houghton assumed a remote air of silence, as if she did not hear any more, did not belong. She lapsed far away. She was really very weak. Miss Pinnegar said: "Well really, if she wants to do it, why, she might as well try." And, as often ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream. Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt humouring him. Not so my companion: ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... all the day; and, to cap what is learnedly called the perverseness of inanimate things, it came on to rain just as the Boy, having finished his lessons, was on the point of setting out for a romp in ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... of some serious purpose which he is about to impart, the woman's perverseness, and the tyrannical waywardness with which she taunts him and plays upon his ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... mankind is at the bottom of the suffering and the division. There is rebellion and perverseness mingled with the helplessness and ignorance and sorrow. No man ever understands or can speak to the religious life unless he has the consciousness of this inner moral cleft. No man will ever be able to preach with power about God unless he does it chiefly ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, "I prefer not to," was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature, with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... bring on themselves by their own folly and perverseness; and some sorts people work on others by their own wicked self-will. God does not cause that, though He will overrule it to do what He ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... a book, as if to intimate that she had no more to say, and Mrs. Colston wondered whether her worst fears were justified or whether Muriel had been behaving with unusual perverseness. In either case, she might make things worse by laboring the subject. She hesitated a moment and then went out in search of ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... the perverseness of her nature lost interest in the secret as soon as she found out what it was, and didn't seem to care whether Eeny-Meeny was burned at the stake or not. And when Katherine went farther and invited her ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... a fool," said Diana, with somewhat unreasonable perverseness. "Or, if I was not a fool, I ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... and for that which they expend of their substance in maintaining their wives. The honest women are obedient, careful in the absence of their husbands, for that God preserveth them, by committing them to the care and protection of the men. But those, whose perverseness ye shall be apprehensive of, rebuke; and remove them into separate apartments, and chastise them.[70] But if they shall be obedient unto you, seek not an occasion of quarrel against them; for God is high and great. And if ye fear a breach between the husband and wife, ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... "I pray you put that thought out of your head. The more precious the drug, the less should it be exposed to the air, because of the perverseness of those who trust only to outward signs. These are not different in the case of honourable and faithful affection than in any other case, so they must none the less be hidden when the love is virtuous than when it is the opposite, if one would avoid the ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... troubles, between man himself, Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart: Oh! that I had a music and a voice Harmonious as your own, that I might tell 30 What ye have done for me. The morning shines, Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,— I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice, In common with the children of her love, Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields, 35 Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven On wings that navigate cerulean skies. So neither ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... implicated in the Whig plot, and had with difficulty eluded the vengeance of the court, Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, in Berwickshire. Great doubt has been thrown on his integrity, but without sufficient reason. It must, however, be admitted that he injured his cause by perverseness as much as he could have done by treachery. He was a man incapable alike of leading and of following, conceited, captious, and wrongheaded, an endless talker, a sluggard in action against the enemy and active only against his own allies. With Hume was closely ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... vulgar expressions, to write a clear sentence; but how few seek for the not less imperative rules which are prescribed by politeness and good sense! Of those who should know them, no small proportion habitually, from thoughtlessness or perverseness, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... crimson, for she had not failed to hear Masten, and it was plain to the rider that she had divined that jealously had impelled Masten to insist on the change of riders. Feminine perverseness, or something stronger, was in her eyes when the rider caught a glimpse of them as he brought his pony to a halt beside her. He might now have made the mistake of referring to Masten and thus have brought from her a quick refusal to accompany him, for he had ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... were easy to enlarge on this subject, but I will not any farther describe their stupid idolatry. The sum of the whole is, that both the Hindoos and Mahometans ground all their opinions on tradition, not on reason, and are content to perish with their fore-fathers, out of preposterous zeal and fond perverseness, never rightly considering ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... of the upright shall guide them; but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them." (Prov. ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... innumerable Disturbances on earth through female snares, And strait conjunction with this sex: For either He never shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; Or, whom he wishes most, shall seldom gain Through her perverseness; but shall see her gain'd By a far worse; or if she love, withheld By parents; or his happiest choice too late Shall meet already link'd, and wedlock-bound To a fell adversary, his hate or shame; Which infinite calamity shall cause To human ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... him against Apollo's charge, affirming him to be free from those mental defects which chiefly betray men into sin, folly, improvidence, and perverseness.]—TR. ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... serene highnesses like you; and we give notice that there are no perfect characters in this history, except, perhaps, one little one, and that one is not perfect either, for she never knows to this day that she is perfect, and with a deplorable misapprehension and perverseness of humility, believes herself to be as great a sinner ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... grin with keen discernment of the author's intention. She did not appeal to the senses nor to a superficial discernment. So she had the anticipatory sense of its failure; and she wrote her best, in perverseness; of course she wrote slowly; she wrote more and more realistically of the characters and the downright human emotions, less of the wooden supernumeraries of her story, labelled for broad guffaw or deluge tears—the grappling natural ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Finlander, suppose, or a Zantiote—might have written Tom; only not an Englishman. Whether an Englishman could have forged Tom must remain a matter of doubt, unless the thing had been tried long ago. That problem was intercepted for ever by Tom's perverseness in choosing to manufacture himself. Yet, since nobody is better aware than M. Michelet that this very point of Kempis having manufactured Kempis is furiously and hopelessly litigated, three or four nations claiming to have forged his work for ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... indifferent circumstances: this faction, under the name of Puritan, became very turbulent, during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth; and were always discouraged by that wise queen, as well as by her two successors. However, their numbers, as well as their insolence and perverseness, so far increased, that soon after the death of King James the First, many instances of their petulancy and scurrility, are to be seen in their pamphlets, written for some years after; which was a trade they began in the days of Queen Elizabeth: particularly with great rancour against ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... more inherently dignified than the application of force—the determinations of nature more venerable than the accidents of human institution. Chance and disorder, vexation and disappointment, malignity and perverseness within or without the mind, are a sad exchange for the steady and genial processes of reason. Moreover; worldly distinctions and offices of command do not lie in the path—nor are they any part of the appropriate retinue—of Philosophy and ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... here, stands shrouded under that goodly robe that makes him glisten in the eye of justice. Yea, all the answer that Satan can get from God against such a soul is, that he 'doth not see iniquity in Jacob, nor behold perverseness in Israel'; for here 'Israel hath not been forsaken, nor Judah of his God, of the Lord of hosts, though,' as to their own persons, 'their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel' (Num 23:21-23; Jer 51:5; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... hero, except in Mary's fancy sketch of the Coming Man. He remonstrates against canonization strenuously—dissent that passes with the idealist for modesty, and enhances her admiration. She is oftener to blame for the disillusion than he. With the perverseness of feminine nature she construes strength into coarseness of fibre, slowness into brutal indifference. Until women get at the truth in this matter of self-deception, disappointment surely awaits upon awakening from Love's ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... disobey my Mamma, when she bids me leave her without being reconciled to me! No sullens, my Mamma: no perverseness: but, worse than either: this is direct disobedience!—Yet tear not yourself from me! [wrapping my arms about her as I kneeled; she struggling to get from me; my face lifted up to hers, with eyes running over, that spoke not my heart ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... dinners, where swells prevailed, and where she was as null as any of them. But although Charmian was apparently radiant the whole evening, and would hardly let Cornelia go away at the end, she wanted her to stay so and talk it over, she had a girl's perverseness in not admitting the perfection of the occasion to Mrs. Maybough, when she said, "Well, my dear, I hope your dinner was Bohemian enough ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... wanted, and no two alike, in either height or size. And if he wanted the front of the house turned from all possible view, as though abashed at any chance of public scrutiny, why, that was his affair and not the public's; and, with like perverseness, if he chose to thrust his kitchen under the public's very nose, what should the generally fagged-out, half-famished representative of that dignified public do but reel in his dead minnow, shoulder his fishing-rod, clamber over the back fence of the old farmhouse and inquire ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... on this head were known to them all,—but as yet her greater folly and worse perverseness, her vitiated taste and dreadful partiality for the Portuguese adventurer, were known but to the two old men and to poor Arthur himself. When that sternly magnificent old lady, Mrs. Fletcher,—whose ancestors had been Welsh kings in the time of the Romans,—when she should hear this story, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... long fallen into the habit of treating her as a child, playing some imaginary character. She seemed less demented than walking in a dream, her faculties asleep. It was somnambulism rather than madness. She had not the expression of insane people, the shifty eyes, the cunning and perverseness, the animal ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... safety of governors may be preserved, and the obedience due to them maintained secure from attempts to which they are liable (by the treachery, levity, perverseness, timorousness, ambition, all such lusts and ill humours of men), it is expedient that men should be tied with the ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... me, therefore, whether God himself could give a revelation, such that men could not misrepresent and pervert it; that is, as long as they were rational creatures," he continued bitterly. "But the mischief of your theory is, that it charges the inevitable result of man's perverseness or ignorance on God, and the revelation he has been supposed to construct, and that is to ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... odd sort of appeal in his voice; appeal against the cruelty of fate, perhaps, or the perverseness ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... exist—wrecking schooners, recruiting on Malaita, and sailing schooners; one lone, unprotected girl in the company of some of the worst scoundrels in the Solomons. Fowler! and Brahms! and Curtis! And such is the perverseness of human nature—I am frank, you see—I love you for that too. I love you for all of you, just ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... doubted that the beautiful Tatokah had many lovers; but the heart of the maiden was touched by none of the noble youths who sought her. She bade them all depart as they came; she rejected them all. With the perverseness which is often seen among women, she had placed her affections upon a youth who had distinguished himself by no valiant deeds in war, nor by industry or dexterity in the chase. His name had never reached the surrounding nations. His own nation knew him not, unless as a weak and imbecile ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... irresistible is power, that it often thwarts the tendency of the most forcible causes, and prevents their subsequent salutary effects, though ordained for the good of man by the Governor of the universe. Such is the perverseness of human nature; who can describe ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur |
