"Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cases of prisoners surrendering and being instantly shot; nor did civilians complain of any wanton looting of the occupied premises, though at Jacobs's and Boland's full use was made of the stores; nor were there any of the Volunteers found drunk. Certainly they should have prevented looting, but it was a duty as much ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... expected perquisite; and so the dead Jew remained exposed his full time. Few excepting those of the true faith ventured to approach the spot, fearful that the Mohamedan authorities would, in their wanton propensities to heap insults upon the Giaours, oblige some one of them to carry the carcass to the place of burial; and thus the horrid and disgusting object was left abandoned to itself, and this had ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... for the third, Laertes: you but dally; I pray you, pass with your best violence; I am afeard you make a wanton of me. ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... death to venture within their limits, and equally fatal to displease them. So well convinced are the people of my nation of their power to inflict an instant and dreadful death on all, that no temptation can induce them to betray their secret recesses to the wanton stranger. They well know that, if they do so, they shall be exposed to the unceasing attacks of all the inferior species of snakes who love their kings, which are these Bright Old Inhabitants, and know by instinct those who ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... Wanton, mutual annihilation inevitable: so long as a single polis wished to exist—its envy for everything superior to itself, its cupidity, the disorder of its customs, the enslavement of the women, lack of conscience ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... then spoke to the following effect:—Sir, that the allowance of two quarts a-day is sufficient, and that to demand more is a wanton indulgence of appetite, is experimentally known, and, therefore, no more ought to be imposed upon ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... the people darkened With unfaithfulness. Yet shall they not with him take But of wilful heart his liberal grace forsake. Which will compel me against man for to make In my displeasure, and send plagues of correction Most grievous and sharp, his wanton lusts to slake, By water and fire, by sickness and infection Of pestilent sores, molesting his complexion; By troublous war, by dearth and painful scarceness, And after this life by an extreme heaviness. I will first begin with Adam for his lewdness ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... a wanton wastrel, and he well deserves the pillory. But, Rebecca, I've a mind to see what observance these people will give the varlet. Last time I saw one pilloried, alas! they slew him with shards and paving-stones. This fellow is liker to be pelted ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... triumphed openly had men spoken to me the words that I shall speak to thee — times when I had gladly said that all which men call holiness was but a mask for corruption and deceit, and should have rejoiced that the very monks themselves were forced to own to their own wanton disregard of their vows. My son, I see the shrinking and astonishment in thine eyes; but yet I would for a moment that thou couldst see with mine. I spoke awhile ago of the judgment of an angry God. Wherefore, thinkest thou, is it that His anger is so ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his restless endeavors, his partial and halting successes. The ante-room in which he had paused with Ferris was painted to look like a grape-arbor, where the vines sprang from the floor, and flourishing up the trellised walls, with many a wanton tendril and flaunting leaf, displayed their lavish clusters of white and purple all over the ceiling. It touched Ferris, when Don Ippolito confessed that this decoration had been the distraction of his own vacant moments, to ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... others it was not by carelessness; he was irritable and resentful; his malignity to Philips, whom he had first made ridiculous and then hated for being angry continued too long. Of his vain desire to make Bentley contemptible I never heard any adequate reason. He was sometimes wanton in his attacks, and before Chandos, Lady Wortley, and Hill, was mean in his retreat. The virtues which seem to have had most of his affection were liberality and fidelity of friendship, in which it does not appear that he was ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... that his mercy towards repentant women who washed his feet with their tears might not be taken as softness towards sin, came back from heaven to say in the Book of Revelation, that he will "cast into great tribulation" and "kill with death" wanton women and the men who visit them. Of these iniquities the compassionate Redeemer says, "Which things I also hate." Rulers cannot claim any consent or condonement of their regulation of vice from the Head of all human government, the King of kings, to whom ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... February 1865. As usual, all that could be of possible value to the enemy was destroyed and, by some accident, the town itself was burned. Sherman, like Sheridan, was much criticized for his methods of reducing opposition, but it does not seem that his "bummers" were guilty of wanton cruelty and destructiveness, at least in general, though the cavalry naturally gave more ground for the accusation than the main body of the army. And the methods of the Confederates had on occasion been somewhat similar. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... difficult access, and with such a frowning, grim, and formidable aspect. Who is it that has disguised it thus, with this false, pale, and ghostly countenance? There is nothing more airy, more gay, more frolic, and I had like to have said, more wanton. She preaches nothing but feasting and jollity; a melancholic anxious look shows that she does not inhabit there. Demetrius the grammarian finding in the temple of Delphos a knot of philosophers set chatting together, said to them,—[Plutarch, Treatise on Oracles which have ceased]—"Either ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the gathering cloud. Those insolent ladies are revelling in the land from which they have ousted their only brother; they are granting leases not worth a straw; they are riding the high horse; they are bringing up that cub (who set the big dog at me) in every wanton luxury. But wait a bit—wait a bit, my ladies; as sure as I live I ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... waste, in loss and wreck: Dryasdust could not have told me, had he tried. And then the breakages, damages still chargeable; the probable afterclap? For you cannot quite gratuitously tweak people by the nose, in your wanton humor, over your wine!—One willing man, or Most Christian Majesty, can at any time begin a quarrel; but there need always two or more to end ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... The king was too courteous and gallant a knight to refuse this request, and even made a pretty and right royal speech, intimating his desire to lose the wager. Then, after vespers, the guard passed fresh and warm into the king's chamber, a lady most dazzlingly white—most delicately wanton, with long tresses and velvet hands, filling out her dress at the least movement, for she was gracefully plump, with a laughing mouth, and eyes moist in advance, a woman to beautify hell, and whose first word had such cordial power that ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... Prospect. He is the Son of an honest, poor Soldier, by a Wife, grave, unmeaning, and innocent. Yet the Boy, (see the Power of connubial Simplicity) is so pretty, so genteel, and gay-spirited, that we have made him, and design'd him, our own, ever since he could totter, and waddle. The wanton Rogue is half Air: and every Motion he acts by has a Spring, like Pamela's when she threw down the Card-table. All this Quickness, however, is temper'd by a good-natur'd Modesty: so that the wildest of his Flights are thought rather diverting ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... inventor. But routine forced him out—into what?—into the moil and toil of fighting for offices, and there he has cut a poor figure indeed. You may say that he has had to spend his energy trying to find a chance to use his power. What a wanton waste of talent is that for a civilized nation! Wiley is another case of the creative mind harassed by the routineers. Judge Lindsey is another—a fine, constructive children's judge compelled to be a politician. And of our misuse ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... singing. This is my last evening with you. Do you think a woman has the right to be as gloriously beautiful as you are to-night? Do you think it's fair to the feelings of a poor wretched man, who adores her, and whom she, in mere wanton wickedness, is sending to the uttermost ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... could not have been more carefully kept. When the men came out to their daily work, all their spare moments were spent in polishing and cleaning every little tarnished or dingy spot. At first it used to seem to me like a wanton risk of life, with the vessel rearing and plunging so that we did not dare to stir on deck, to see them climb the tall masts, and cling there, scraping and oiling them, to bring out the veining of the wood. Perhaps it was partly as a discipline ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... fie, upon her; There's a language in her eye, her cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks, her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the cool of a cleft, sat he—majestical Pan! Ivy drooped wanton, kissed his head, moss cushioned his hoof; All the great God was good in the eyes grave-kindly—the curl Carved on the bearded cheek, amused at a mortal's awe As, under the human trunk, the goat-thighs grand I saw. "Halt, Pheidippides!"—halt I did, my brain of a whirl: "Hither to me! Why pale ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various
... peculiarly her own. You received from the hands of Hymen only one woman, awkward and innocent; the celibate returns you a dozen of them. A joyful and rapturous husband sees his bed invaded by the giddy and wanton courtesans, of whom we spoke in the Meditation on The First Symptoms. These goddesses come in groups, they smile and sport under the graceful muslin curtains of the nuptial bed. The Phoenician girl flings to you her garlands, gently ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... traversed the land there was evidence of fierce combats and of wanton destruction of property; burning villages, fields of produce trodden in the earth, etcetera. Still further on I encountered long trains of wagons bearing supplies and ammunition to the front. As we advanced these were met by bullock-trains bearing wounded ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Against this evil large pecuniary interests were rather the reverse of a remedy. Accordingly, the Company's servants have ever since covered over the worst oppressions of the people under their government, and the most cruel and wanton ravages of all the neighboring countries, by holding out, and for a time actually realizing, additions of revenue to the territorial funds of the Company, and great quantities of valuable ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... it matter? As I deem, We shall but follow as brave a dream As ever smiled a wanton May Over the ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... PILLAGE. Wanton and mostly iniquitous plunder. But an allowed ancient practice, both in this and other countries, as shown by the sea ordinances of France, and our black book ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... what has occupied my imagination since my childhood, what has always given me the feeling of seductive terror. A foolish apprehension! It will be a wanton game she will play with me, nothing more. She loves me, and she is good, a noble personality, incapable of a breach of faith. But it lies in her hands —if she wants to she can. What a temptation in ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
... result from the interview, for to his mind the story was ended, and he had only to retire with the dignity still possible to a dishonoured man. To touch the note of pathos would be unworthy; to exert what influence might be left to him, a wanton cruelty. But he had heard such unexpected things, that it was not easy for him to remember how complete had seemed the severance between him and Sidwell. The charm of her presence was reasserting itself, and when avowal of continued love appeared so unmistakably in her troubled countenance, ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... crab" is to roast a wild apple in the fire in order to throw it hissing hot into a bowl of nutbrown ale, into which had been put a toast with some spice and sugar. Puck describes one of his wanton pranks: ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... at last thou art! Ere bud to rounded blossom change; Thou wilt for wanton lips and heart Most false, thy ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... either party considers that it has gained the best ground, or finds it can surprise the other, the attack is made. They advance at once to close quarters, and the slaughter is consequently great, though the battle may be short. The prisoners of either sex are seldom spared, but slain on the spot with wanton cruelty. The dead are scalped, and he is considered the bravest person who bears the greatest number of scalps from the field. These are afterwards attached to his war dress, and worn as proofs of his prowess. The victorious ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... Hark ye: The queen your mother rounds apace. We shall Present our services to a fine new prince One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us, If we ...
— The Winter's Tale - [Collins Edition] • William Shakespeare
... removed elsewhere, he enjoyed enviable esteem from his superiors and the hatred and dislike of all others. Though inclined to court after the manner of the pillager who has captured a city, his boisterous addresses pleased the wanton matrons and, more naturally, the facile Cythereans of the music halls ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... round and looked hard at Gordon, Smith, and Hart minor, who blushed scarlet, and whose eyes filled with tears. . . . "The less said about the matter the better," continued the headmaster, "but I confess that it is difficult for me to understand how any one, however young, can be so hardened and so wanton as to behave in the callous and indecent way in which certain of you—I need not mention who—have behaved to-day. You have disgraced the school in the eyes of strangers; you have violated the laws ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... instant a much larger boat hove in sight. As she did so, a man standing in the stern-sheets was seen to lift a musket and fire at the gig: at the same moment an oar dropped from the hands of one of the crew, who sank down on the thwart; the gig, however, still coming on. It was a wanton act. The large boat pulled round, and before we could have brought one of our guns to bear on her she was again hidden behind the point. The captain, on seeing the occurrence, ordered the other boats to be got ready, intending to send them up in chase of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Furthermore, I should like to be given charge of the palace, in order to see that his wants are properly provided for. We cannot afford to have our movement discredited at the outset by unnecessary bloodshed or by any wanton outrages." ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... courses of the streams of energy which pertain to youthful vigor and manhood?" To be destitute of that which may be described as raw material in the human frame, means that no really vigorous manhood can have place; to burn up the juices of the system in the fires of lust is madness and wanton folly, {418} but it can be done. To divert the currents of life and energy from blood and brain, from memory and muscle, in order to secrete it for the shambles of prostitution, is death to true manhood; but remember, it can be done! The generous liquid life may inspire the brain and blood with ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... like a virgin bride, The radiant morn resumed her orient pride; When wanton gales along the valleys play, 15 Breathe on each flower, and bear their sweets away; By Tigris' wandering waves he sat, and sung This useful lesson for the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... tower above its shore, (p. 308) Green rushes fringe its brim, And o'er its breast for evermore The wanton breezes skim. ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... to Dr. Lee, and to many besides, that notwithstanding the extensive researches of Wodrow and others, there have died away in the silent lapse of time, or are still hovering over our cleuchs and glens, in the aspect of a dim and misty tradition, many instances of extreme cruelty and wanton oppression, exercised (during the reign of Charles II.) over the poor Covenanters, or rather Nonconformists, of the south and west counties of Scotland. In particular, although the whole district suffered, it was in the vale of the Nith, and in the hilly portion of the parish of Closeburn, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... unbending, and he himself combined an almost womanly gentleness with a quiet determination that unflinchingly faced all obstacles. With a high sense of personal honour, unassuming and even-tempered, he was only roused to anger by acts of oppression or wanton cruelty. Then his indignation, though not loud, was very real, and he acted with a promptitude which would hardly have been expected from his usually placid demeanour. A story is told of how one day sitting at table he saw through the window a man belabouring a woman. Without ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... during the war with Russia. In 1808, Admiral Cronstadt, the commander of the Swedish forces, who had hitherto proved himself a brave and patriotic officer, submitted to terms of capitulation and delivered over the forts to the Russians. History scarcely furnishes a parallel to such a wanton and unaccountable act of treachery. Cronstadt had fifteen hundred men, two frigates, and all the munitions of war to hold his position against any force that could be brought against him; while the Russians were reduced to great extremities, and, it is said, had ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... cathedral church of San Augustine, to whom the lucky gamblers were accustomed to dedicate a part of their winnings, that thus they might sanctify their unrighteous calling by bringing robbery to the saint for an offering. Poor saint! how much he and his priests have suffered by this wanton interference of the civil government in Church affairs—this prohibition of monte-playing in honor of the festival of San Augustine! There was much in this church to admire, and much of that gold displayed which gamblers are accustomed to lavish ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... the European governments in Borneo, punitive expeditions have been necessary from time to time in order to put a stop to wanton raiding and killing. In this respect the Ibans and some of the Klemantans have been the chief offenders; while the Kayans and Kenyahs have seldom given trouble, after once placing themselves under the established governments. In the Baram river, in which ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... But I think I am not bound to discover myself But we were friends again as we are always Cure of the King's evil, which he do deny altogether Duke of York and Mrs. Palmer did talk to one another very wanton First time I had given her leave to wear a black patch First time that ever I heard the organs in a cathedral Gentlewomen did hold up their heads to be kissed by the King Have her come not as a sister in any respect, but as a servant Have not known her this ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick, and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself "walking ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... labor, therefore, to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good-breeding and loving with prudence; to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger; and no friendship dangerous, in case it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... these eyes of mine have never wandered, Still may they gleam with long forgotten light. Since in no wanton way my youth was squandered, Some sense of youth still clings to ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... superhuman) shape: their present conditions represented only the consequence of ancient faults. Any human being also, by reason of like faults, might hereafter be reduced to the same dumb state,—might be reborn as a reptile, a fish, a bird, or a beast of burden. The consequence of wanton cruelty to any animal might cause the perpetrator of that cruelty to be reborn as an animal of the same kind, destined to suffer the same cruel treatment. Who could even be sure that the goaded ox, the over-driven horse, or the slaughtered bird, had not formerly been ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... island with fortifications; who could fear our enemies only by sea, and there had their own force of galleys to protect them; who were independent and held in the highest honour by you—to act as these have done, this is not revolt—revolt implies oppression; it is deliberate and wanton aggression; an attempt to ruin us by siding with our bitterest enemies; a worse offence than a war undertaken on their own account in the acquisition of power. The fate of those of their neighbours who had already rebelled and had been subdued ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... juries and sought to get his victims hanged. It may be regarded as a cunning and cowardly attempt to shift part of the odium on to the Government. Certainly the prestige of the Cabinet now fell to zero. Ministers were held responsible for Braxfield's wanton vagaries, and were accused of luring English democrats into the meshes of the Scottish law. This last charge is absurd. As we have seen, the London police sought to stop Margarot, Sinclair, and Gerrald from going ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... our country down here is worth singing about like that!" continued the glazier, as the Scotchman again melodized with a dying fall, "My ain countree!" "When you take away from among us the fools and the rogues, and the lammigers, and the wanton hussies, and the slatterns, and such like, there's cust few left to ornament a song with in ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... condition of James had been going from bad to worse. Besides resorting to antiquated feudal exactions,(166) he took to levying impositions on articles of commerce. But even these failed to make up the deficiency created in his exchequer by his wanton extravagance, and in 1610 he was obliged to apply to parliament. An attempt to make a composition with the king for feudal dues and to restrict his claim to levy impositions failed, and parliament was ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... around. Just as we began to climb the hill we saw three boys who came down the cleft of a brow on our left; one carried a fishing-rod, and the hats of all were braided with honeysuckles; they ran after one another as wanton as the wind. I cannot express what a character of beauty those few honeysuckles in the hats of the three boys gave to the place: what bower could they have come from? We walked up the hill, met two well-dressed travellers, the woman barefoot. Our little lads before they had gone far were joined ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... now, in Harlan's eyes—they were wanton—in them was concentrated all the hate and contempt that Harlan felt for him. But back of it all was that iron self-control that Deveny had seen in the man when he had faced him ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Tacitus, "in sleep, his nights in the duties or pleasures of life; where others toiled for fame he had lounged into it, and he had the reputation not, like most members of that profligate society, of a dissolute wanton, but of a trained master in luxury. A sort of careless ease, an entire absence of self-consciousness, added the charm of complete simplicity to all he said and did. Yet, as governor of Bithynia, and afterwards as consul, he showed himself a vigorous ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... who commanded the division next to ours, by a wanton excess of zeal in expecting an order to follow, would not permit any thing belonging to us to pass the bridge, for fear of impeding the march of his troops; and, as he received no order to march, we were thereby prevented from getting any ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... food, And water ever to my wildest thirst, I would desert you—think not but I would!— And seek another as I sought you first. But you are mobile as the veering air, And all your charms more changeful than the tide, Wherefore to be inconstant is no care: I have but to continue at your side. So wanton, light and false, my love, are you, I am most faithless when ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... distinguish mutilated forms writhing in agony, while ever and anon one and another rose convulsively from out the mass, endeavoured to stagger towards the wood, and ere they had taken a few steps, fell and wallowed on the bloody sand. My blood curdled within me as I witnessed this frightful and wanton slaughter; but I had little time to think, for the captain's deep voice came again over the water towards us: "Pull ashore, lads, and fill your water casks." The men obeyed in silence, and it seemed to me as if even their hard hearts were shocked by ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the liberal or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, etc. provided they are not accompanied with gross indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally treated with a good deal of indulgence, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... but two scriptures that I shall use more, and then I shall draw towards a conclusion. One is that in Proverbs, where Solomon is counselling of young men to beware of strange, that is, of wanton, light, and ensnaring women. Take heed of such, said he, lest 'thou mourn at the last,' that is, in hell, when thou art dead, 'when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, and say, How have I hated instruction, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... honorable hospitality. If Thou dost come as the great Lord of Life, The Lord of bear and wolf, and stag and fox, Leopard and ape, and rabbits of the rocks, We are thy children, as our brothers are,— The furry folk of forest fastnesses, The bright-winged birds that wanton with the breeze, The seal that sport amid the sapphire seas. We worship gods of lightning and of thunder, Of winds and hissing waves, the rainbow's wonder, The fruits and grains, borne by the kindly earth, And all the ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America in the early periods of colonization to be doubly wronged by the white men. They have been dispossessed of their hereditary possessions by mercenary and frequently wanton warfare, and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and interested writers. The colonists often treated them like beasts of the forest, and the author has endeavored to justify him in his outrages. The former found it easier to exterminate ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... The speaker's former careless and boisterous manner instantly resumed possession. "You must permit me to speak of a wholly fictitious lady, a creature of my wanton fancy, sir, whom I call Carmen. It will enable me to relieve my burdened soul of some remarks I have long wished to ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... of fifty guns appeared in sight; and, after a desperate engagement with her, in which Walsingham was severely wounded, and every other officer on board killed or wounded, Walsingham saw that nothing was left but to make a wanton sacrifice of the remainder of his crew, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... girl he nudged he saw did not belong to the village—moreover, she was barefooted, mischievously drunk, and flushed with riding on the wooden horses. She was barely eighteen. She laughed outright as he gripped her strong arm, and opened her wanton mouth wide, showing her even, white teeth. In return for her welcome he slapped her strong ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... of countless varieties in kind and size, from the largest goose to the small marsh-bird, and of every conceivable variety of dismal note. Off they moved, in wild and alarmed rout, like a people going into exile; filling the air, far and wide, with their reproachful lament at the wanton cruelty which had driven ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... amiable of all characters, and is so sustained as to strike an audience very forcibly. In this, as in the former play, Mr. Rowe is guilty of a mis-nomer; for his Calista has not the least claim to be called the Fair Penitent, which would be better changed to the Fair Wanton; for she discovers not one pang of remorse till the last act, and that seems to arise more from the external distress to which she is then exposed, than to any compunctions of conscience. She still loves ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... injustice done them; and, if such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour of his or ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... (who was lying in wait for them,) and completely plucked of their feathers, an operation to which they very quietly submitted, and were then suffered to depart. Upon inquiring his motive for what appeared to me a wanton act of cruelty, he told me his intention was to stuff his bed with the feathers; 'or,' added he, 'if you vill, to feather my nest.' Being myself an admirer of a soft bed, I saw no reason why I should not employ myself in the same way; but owing, perhaps, to my being a novice ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... danger with which they were surrounded from false friends, originated that doubt which is now charged on the people of Ireland as a first proof of wanton discontent—I mean a doubt about the validity of the simple repeal of the 6th Geo. III. as an act of renunciation. Discontent on this subject arose and became general in Ireland almost immediately on the repeal of that obnoxious statute; and from the zeal and warmth with which it was attempted ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... to give a reason why he would not,) his majesty sent us an answer, that because we brought precedents of antiquity to strengthen those demands, he allowed not of any precedents drawn from the time of usurping or decaying princes, or people too bold and wanton; that he desired not to govern in that commonwealth where subjects should be assured of all things, and hope for nothing. It was one thing 'submittere principatum legibus,' and another thing 'submittere principatum subditis.' That he would not ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... blazing and starving cities, are almost beyond belief; unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their mothers; women and children were violated by thousands; and whole populations burned and hacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which cruelty, in its wanton ingenuity, could devise. Such was the administration, of which Vargas affirmed, at its close, that too much mercy, "nimia misericordia," had been ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Power in North America, Great Britain considers itself entitled to claim the use of the lakes as a military barrier."[394] The declaration of war by the United States was regarded by most Englishmen as a wanton endeavor to overthrow their immemorial right to the services of their seamen, wherever found; and consequently the invasion of Canada had been an iniquitous attempt to effect annexation under cover of an indefensible pretext. To guard against the renewal of such, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... pleasure in thwarting my wishes which made itself seen through the veil of assumed indifference. I felt myself brought up with a vengeance, and in a manner the most provoking that could be conceived. But opposition so childish, so utterly wanton, by exciting my indignation, had presently the effect of banishing the peculiar bashfulness I felt in her presence, and recalling me to ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... sought Honours, Princes thoughts observing, Many woo'd Fame, the child of paine and anguish, Others judg'd inward good a chiefe deserving, I in thy wanton Visions joy'd to languish. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... would by no means impeach the general rule of man's being a social animal; especially when it appears (as is sufficiently and admirably proved by my friend the author of An Enquiry into Happiness) that these men live in a constant opposition to their own nature, and are no less monsters than the most wanton abortions or extravagant births. ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... ark cypresses, to the full height of Portofino Kulm, where the whole enchanted coast-line of the Riviera from Genoa to Sestri Levante lay spread out as a jewelled fringe of ocean. Elaine stood hatless while the wanton breeze caressed her glorious hair and caught at her ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... the altar tomb (6) which now contains the remains of Bishop Beauchamp, who died in 1481. When this was removed from the aisle at the north end of the great transept it was empty, and showed no trace of its original dedication. During the wanton demolition of the Beauchamp chantry, where, "in marble tumbes," with his father and mother on either hand, the remains of Bishop Beauchamp had been unmolested for over three hundred years, his own tomb was "mislaid" and never recovered. It is pleasant ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... death approacheth, speaks a different language —If it testifies to a departing soul—"You have neglected, the great salvation—lived in pleasure and been wanton, minding only earthly things," it fills the soul with anguish unutterable, causing it to ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... not a wanton. Natacha has no heart. She has only a brain. And it doesn't take long for a brain touched by Nihilism to get so it won't hesitate ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... two days of grace had passed for those doleful hostages in the Plymouth Adventure. They beheld the black flag hoisted to the rigging of the Revenge as a signal of tragic import, but the bandy-legged monster with the festooned whiskers was not to disport himself with this wanton butchery. The sky had closed darkly around the becalmed ships, in sodden clouds which were suddenly obscured by mist and rain while the wind sighed in fitful gusts. It steadied into the southward and swiftly increased in force until the sea was ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... Saying, you are my servant and shall do My purposes, or utter bitterness Shall be your wage, and nothing come to you But stammering tongues that never can confess. Undaunted then in answer here I cry, 'You wanton, that control the hand of him Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky Where holy, holy, sing the cherubim, I will not pay one penny to your name Though all my ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... think he had no reason at all except wanton mischief. Perhaps he used the buttons for marbles; there cannot be any real reason for such a silly deed, though he may make one up. Well, why did you ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie
... lower classes, greedy for spoil, sacked and destroyed their houses, and pulled down and burned their towers and palaces with such outrageous fury, that the most cruel enemy of the Florentine name would have been ashamed of taking part in such wanton destruction. ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... to be required of him. He went mournfully and slowly up Grange Lane, steeling himself for the encounter, and trying to forgive aunt Dora in his heart. It was not very easy. Things might have turned out just the same without any interference—that was true; but to have it all brought on in this wanton manner by a kind foolish woman, who would wring her hands and gaze in your face, and want to know, Oh! did you think it was her fault? after she had precipitated the calamity, was very hard; and it was with a very gloomy countenance, accordingly, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... is blind, and a wanton; In the whole world, there is scant one ——Such another: No, not his mother. He hath pluck'd her doves and sparrows, To feather his sharp arrows, And alone prevaileth, While sick Venus waileth. But if Cypris once recover The wag; it shall behove ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... our strength when there is little strength left of any kind to feel? These things will hardly much disturb a man of ordinary good temper. But that he should have said this or that little unkind and wanton saying; that he should have gone away from this or that hotel and given a shilling too little to the waiter; that his clothes were shabby at such or such a garden- party—these things gall us as a corn will sometimes do, ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... Sir James Stuart, David Stuart, Andrew Stuart, Joseph Signay, Robert Symes, Jean Thomas Taschereau, John Peyfinch Thirlwall, Henry Truder, Joseph Remi Valieres de St. Real, Geo. Vanfelson, Norman Fitzgerald Umacke, George Usborne, George A Wanton, Gustavus Wicksteed, Daniel Wilkie, George Willing, Thomas William Willan, George Wurtele and Jonathan Wurtele. After half a century the survivors are Gen. Baddely, Gustavus Wicksteed, Revd Edmund Sewell, John Fraser, Admiral Bayfield ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... She knew that, with the sacrifice of her chastity, she had surrendered everything a self-respecting woman holds dear, all for what—a few glittering trinkets! In what was she better than a common wanton? And what would her end be, but the end of all women of her kind? When her youth had passed and her beauty had faded, her admirers would grow cold and indifferent. Abandoned by all, friendless and homeless, she would go unwept to an ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... cried, "I will not let you go. For you are dear and pure and faithful, and all my evil dream, wherein you were a wanton and be-fooled me, was not true. Surely, mine was a dream that can never be true so long as there is any justice upon earth. Why, there is no imaginable God who would permit a boy to be robbed of that which in my evil dream was taken ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... brother, who is at Montreal, but I am told is expected to-day. I have spent my time however very agreably. I know not what the winter may be, but I am enchanted with the beauty of this country in summer; bold, picturesque, romantic, nature reigns here in all her wanton luxuriance, adorned by a thousand wild graces which mock the cultivated beauties of Europe. The scenery about the town is infinitely lovely; the prospect extensive, and diversified by a variety of hills, woods, rivers, cascades, intermingled with ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... unabashed freedom only by a long and faithful habitude of unselfish devotion, are here openly, deliberately, and carelessly assumed by people who have but a casual and partial society-acquaintance. This I reckon profanity. This is levity the most culpable. This is a guilty and wanton waste of delicacy. That it is practised by good girls and tolerated by good mothers does not prove that it is good. Custom blunts the edge of many perceptions. A good thing soiled may be redeemed by good people; but waltz as many as ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... that though they took the greatest pains with the circlet of a crown, or the rim of a crystal cup, in the heart of their picture, they would twist their capitals of columns and towers of churches about in the background in the most wanton way, wherever they liked the lines to go, provided only they left just perspective enough ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... Vernon savagely. He was violently excited. Perspiration was pouring off his face at the thought of the almost unparalleled act of wanton treachery that was about to be enacted. "If we could ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... was in a wanton mood to-night, and of late a voice had been desperately urging her to grasp at what she could, that she might, as long as possible, delay her ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... what I'm about," she said, breathing quick. "He made a fule o' me wi' that wanton Lizzie Short, and he near killt me the last morning afore he went. And I'd been a good wife to him for fifteen year, and never a word between us till that huzzy came along. And she's got a child by him, and he must go and throw ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... her words before she foamed them from her, "if you weren't a daughter of mine, I'd—I'd say you were a wanton woman. You know in your heart, as your father always taught you—as you could read in the Bible now—if you ever do read your Bible—that the sins of the fathers, yes, and the mothers too, will fall ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... commentators have been puzzled by the multitude of these changes, and when, for a scene of a few moments, Shakespeare shows us a Roman army marching through Syria, they have been able to see in it nothing more than a wanton violation of the rule of the unity of place; they have not understood that it is precisely by such touches as these that Shakespeare has succeeded in bringing before our minds a sense of universal agitation and ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... "Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain" many instances are given of the wanton and wholesale destruction of church and churchyard memorials, even late in the eighteenth century. In some cases the church officers, as already stated, gave public notice prior to removal of gravestones, in order ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... And now he wants to educate you in the same school. Lucretia Kingsley is correct,—oil and water are more fit to be mated than you and Mr. Spence. You have broken her heart, too, by your wanton conduct, Virginia. Her sympathy for Mr. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants, men, women, and children engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modem history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... a tradition upon that farm for years afterwards that these two Mormons, after receiving charity, had made an open display of that wanton wickedness which ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... what Tongue can praise the mighty Worth, Who to Ridotto gave an English Birth; To him let every Templar bend the Knee, Receive a Ticket, and give up the Fee: Let Drury-Lane eternal Columns raise, And every wanton Wife resound his Praise; Let Courtiers with implicit Faith obey, And to their grand Procurer ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... And then how wanton and silly the whole management of the affair has been. Think of our Empire so gloriously won, so magnificently established. France, no doubt, brooded over the possibility of a revanche, but no other country envied us ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... Rhene, when winter's freezing cold Congeals the streams to thick and hardened glass, The beauties fair of shepherds' daughters bold With wanton windlays run, turn, play and pass; So on this river passed the wizard old, Although unfrozen soft and swift it was, And thither stalked where the warriors stayed, To whom, their greetings done, he spoke ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... Icentum, in Warwickshire. In his youth, perceiving himself somewhat touched with wanton love on seeing a woman dance, he withdrew into a thicket hard by, and, lying prostrate, bewailed his fault before God, with very great contrition. And he was endowed from that time, by Almighty God, with the gift of such a constant watchfulness over his senses, as prevented ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... heard the cry of the wanton sea And the moan of the wailing wind; For love's sweet pain in his heart had he, But the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... usurping king, fled on the approach of King Tecla and Ras Michael with 20,000 men. On their entry into the city, those who had sympathised with the usurper were executed in hundreds with a wanton cruelty which shocked and disgusted me. The bodies of the victims were cut in pieces and scattered about the streets, and hundreds of hyenas came down from the neighbouring mountains to feed on the human carrion. I determined to do the best I could to escape from this bloody country, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... who settled Wheeling, [95] were also men of enterprise, tempered with prudence, and directed by sound judgment. Ready at all times, to resist and punish the aggression of the Indians, they were scrupulously careful not to provoke them by acts of wanton outrage, such as were then, too frequently committed along the frontier. Col. Ebenezer Zane had been among the first, to explore the country from the South Branch, through the Alleghany glades, and west ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... luxurious living, and indulged in excesses that it was not easy for the more frugal citizens to forgive. He sent seven chariots to the Olympic Games, from which he carried off the first, second, and fourth prizes. He gave splendid shows, distributed money freely, and in spite of his wanton follies retained numbers of friends ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... starvation in low life; foul floods of nastiness in Law Courts; muddy tricklings of misery in lawless alleys; crimes so terrible and revolting; pains so pitiless and cureless; follies so selfish and wanton, that he let the journal drop, and fell back in his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... of 1808 and of 1823 differed equally in object and in results: the first was a cunning and wanton attack, which threatened the existence of the Spanish nation, and was fatal to its author; the second, while combating dangerous principles, fostered the general interests of the country, and was the more readily brought to a ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... Bouvigny to the west of it—where I stood among Canadian batteries just six weeks before the battle of Arras in 1917. The lamentable ruin of once beautiful Arras, the desolation of Douai, and the villages between it and Valenciennes, the wanton destruction of what was once the heart of Cambrai, and that grim scene of the broken bridge on the Cambrai—Bapaume road, over the Canal du Nord, where we got out on a sombre afternoon, to look and look again ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and yet true to a spiritual goal, ultimately measures our health and natural normality and the value of our morality. Nature shapes her aims according to her means. Would that every man might realize this simple lesson and maxim—there would be less call for a rank and wanton hankering for relapses into archaic but evidently not wholly outgrown tendencies to the assumption of "omnipotence of thought," revived again from time to time as "New Thought." Psychiatry restores to science and to the practical mind the right to ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... humbly bows and meekly does obeisance. But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all-pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil,—before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... imagine the beauty of the great hall at Ferrara when hung with this brilliant series, which was completed in 1523 by the "Bacchus and Ariadne" of the National Gallery. The whole company of bacchanals is given up to wanton merrymaking. Above them broods the deep blue sky and great white clouds of a summer day. The deep greens of the foliage throw the creamy-white and burning colour of the draperies and the fair forms of the nymphs into glowing relief, while by a convention the satyrs ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... in all that time did I overcome the sense of unreality, and always I was obsessed by the injustice, the wanton waste and cost and injustice of it all. The baby at La Panne—why should it go through life on stumps instead of legs? The boyish officer—why should he have died? The little sixteen-year-old soldier who had been blinded and who sat all day by the phonograph, ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart |
