"Wont to" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first throes of internal revolution when foreigners intervened.[107] Schallmeyer infers that the "adaptability of an intelligent and disciplined people is far greater than we, judging from other cases, have been wont to believe."[108] Le Bon absolutely denies that culture can be transmitted from people to people. He says that the ruin of Japan is yet to come, from the attempt to adopt foreign ways.[109] The best information is that the mores of the Japanese ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... when Psmith, sliding unostentatiously from his stool, flicked divers pieces of dust from the leg of his trousers, and sidled towards the basement, where he was wont to keep his hat during business hours. He was aware that it would be a matter of some delicacy to leave the bank at that hour. There was a certain quantity of work still to be done in the Fixed Deposits Department—work ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... she; but, ah, how pale, how wan—how languid and full of the evidences of much mental suffering was she. Where now was the elasticity of that youthful step? Where now was that lustrous beaming beauty of mirthfulness, which was wont to dawn in ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... parlor, my heart bowed down with grief. The noiseless steps, the mourning garments of the old servants; the unnatural silence of those walls within which from my infancy the sounds of merriment and mirth had been familiar; the large old-fashioned chair where he was wont to sit, now placed against the wall,—all spoke of the sad past. Yet, when some footsteps would draw near, and the door would open, I could not repress a thrill of hope that he was coming; more than once I rushed ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... as a woman could have had them. This was known, because Jasper Dale occasionally had his hired man's wife, Mrs. Griggs, in to scrub for him. On the morning she was expected he betook himself to woods and fields, returning only at night-fall. During his absence Mrs. Griggs was frankly wont to explore the house from cellar to attic, and her report of its condition was always the same—"neat as wax." To be sure, there was one room that was always locked against her, the west gable, looking out ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... indeed, he did it so inimitably that I was not sure how much was false and how much true. I tried to avoid him to-day, but my mother as constantly made private speech between us easy. At last he had his way, and then I was not sorry; for Georgette was listening to him with more colour than she is wont to wear. I would rather see her in her grave than with her hand in his, her sweet life in his power. She is unschooled in the ways of the world, and she never will know it as I now do. How am I sounding ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... itself into a young man named Shen Lang, and married Chia Yue, daughter of the Chief Judge of T'an Chou (Ch'ang-sha Fu, capital of Hunan). The young people lived in rooms below the official apartments. During spring and summer Shen Lang, as dragons are wont to do, roamed in the rivers and lakes. One day Hsue Chen-chuen met him, recognized him as a dragon, and knew that he was the cause of the numerous floods which were devastating Kiangsi Province. He determined to find a means of getting rid ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... whom I was wont to worship! fearest thou, my sister, for thy life? Once it was the scope of my labors to destroy thee, but I was prompted to the deed by heaven; such, at least, was my belief. Thinkest thou that thy death was sought to ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... shot and shell, and everywhere from the field rose groans and cries for water. The word "water" never ceased from use. Water!—Water, Water!—Water!—Water! On it went, mournfully, like a wind.—Water!—Water! Edward gathered cartridges steadily. All manner of things were wont to come into his mind. Just now it was a certain field behind Greenwood covered with blackberry bushes—and the hot August sunshine—and he and Easter's Jim gathering blackberries while Mammy watched from beneath a tree. He heard again the little ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... he exclaimed. "Would you poach on my preserves? The young lady whose finger that ring adorns I am wont to regard as my especial property, an' a half-fledged young pukeko, like you, presumes to cut me out! You mend that lady's trinkets? You lean over a bar, an' court beauty adorned in the latest fashion? You make love to my 'piece' by fixing ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... was departed from his fellowship he rode long without any adventure. For he found not the tenth part of adventure as he was wont to do. For Sir Gawaine rode from Whitsuntide until Michaelmas and found none adventure that pleased him. So on a day it befell Gawaine met with Sir Ector de Maris, and either made great joy of other that it were marvel to tell. And so they told everych other, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... the custom for him to write the letters in reply. He was wont to vie with the other in point of style. Then, too, he used to be delighted when Nana, grown enthusiastic after the letter had been read over aloud, would kiss him with the announcement that nobody but he could "say things like that." Thus their latent affections would be stirred, and they ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... come to-night" he said, "and I am here, Nathaniel Deane! Are you glad to see me?" and his eyes never moved from Eugenia, who sat like one petrified, as did her mother and sister. "Have you no word of welcome??" he continued. "Your letters were wont to be kind and affectionate. I have brought them with me, as a passport to you friendship. Shall I show ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... mightily inflames and enkindles her. Now is he kind to her, now cruel; now she wants him, and now she rejects him. She accuses her eyes of treachery and says: "Eyes, you have betrayed me. Through you has my heart which was wont to be faithful conceived hatred for me. Now does what I see bring grief. Grief? Nay, in truth, but rather pleasure. And if I see aught that grieves me, still have I not my eyes under my own sway? My strength must indeed have failed me; and I must esteem myself but lightly if I ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... and were keenly enjoyed by the empty benches by which the Protestant clergy were ably represented. Why turned ye not out, O Biblethump, and Muddletext, and you, Hymnsing? Is it thus that the Master was wont to ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... ready. It consisted of a large kettle of tea, a lump of pemmican, a handful of broken biscuit, and three ptarmigan—all of which were produced from the small wooden box which the accountant was wont to call his camp-larder. The ptarmigan had been shot two weeks before, and carefully laid up for future use; the intense frost being a sufficient guarantee for their preservation for many months, ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... et-Hannan ("Moaning Sand-heap"). They declare that when the Hajj-caravan passes, or rather used to pass, by that way, before the early sixteenth century, when Sultan Selim laid out his maritime high-road, a Naubah ("orchestra") was wont to sound within its bowels. This tale, which, by-the-by, is told of two other places in Midian, may have been suggested by the Jebel el-Nakus ("Bell Mountain") in Sinai-land; but as the Arabs perform visitation and sacrifice ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... spilled into the valley: Erin's monarch has died. Though he was wont to ride a white charger. Though he had many steeds, His car this day is drawn by a yoke of oxen. The king of Erin ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... but two or three had appeared from behind the rocks of the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie's soul. Thus had they played in Curdie's garden—he had seen the picture—and thus had they frightened the Princess's nurse. He heard them talking to each other, and recognised with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... and Teztucans of Central America were wont to hang clusters of similar tiny bells outside temples and towers, which, as they were swayed by the wind, kept up a musical sound. One of these, found in Mexico, may be seen in the British Museum; it bears the ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... and is this the strain in which you were wont to talk? Why are you thus altered, and what means this inauspicious quick-sightedness and alarm? We should indeed survey and prepare for danger, but we should never suffer it to overwhelm us. The cause of integrity should never be despaired of. What avails the suspicions ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... followed his example, and the battle waged fiercely on every hand. The "Victory," in which Nelson was, singled out the "Santissima Trinidad," a huge four-decker, which he had encountered before, and which he was wont to call his old acquaintance. At the same time seven or eight French and Spanish ships opened a fire on the "Victory." Mr. Scott, his secretary, was killed, Captain Hardy was wounded in the foot, and fifty sailors perished ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... nature. But what would the waking be? Not all the power of the revived past could shut out the anticipation of the dreadful difference to be disclosed, the moment she should open those sleeping eyes. To what a frightfully farther distance was that soul now removed, whose return I had been wont to watch, as from the depths of the unknown world! That was strange; this was terrible. Instead of the dawn of rosy intelligence I had now to look for the fading of the loveliness as she woke, till her face withered into the bewildered and indigent ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... deliver another Paradox, touching the cause of the Condensation of the Air, and Ascent of water by cold in common Weather-glasses. The latter piece of this part contains an Examen of Antiperistasis, as it is wont to be taught and proved; Of all which there will, perhaps, a fuller account be ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... foresail, down foresail, every five minutes, always worrying the men for nothing. He was not considered as a good officer, but a very troublesome one. He had a knack of twisting and moving his fingers about as he walked the deck, and the men were wont to say that 'he must have been a ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... true genius conquers envy. "To be immortal," says Schiller, "live in the whole." To be superior to the hour, live in thy self-esteem. The audience now would give their ears for those variations and flights they were once wont to hiss. No!—Pisani has been two-thirds of a life at silent work on his masterpiece: there is nothing he can add to THAT, however he might have sought to improve on the masterpieces of others. Is not ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... preface the young man kissed his former playfellows as heartily as the boy had been wont to do, when stern parents banished him to distant schools, and three little maids bemoaned his fate. But times were changed now; for Di grew alarmingly rigid during the ceremony; Laura received the salute like a graceful queen; and Nan returned it with heart and eyes and tender lips, making such ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... nurse her rancour in silence and futility. Then came the seances, and at once, to add fuel to her hatred, she found herself stripped of those gifts and commissions which she had exacted from the herd of common tricksters who had been wont to make their harvest out of Mme. Dauvray. Helene Vauquier was avaricious and greedy, like so many of her class. Her hatred of Celia, her contempt for Mme. Dauvray, grew into a very delirium. But it was a delirium she had the cunning to conceal. She lived at white heat, ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... chosen artists and craftsmen with him from France, but "many of the citizens and merchants of Rouen," says the chronicler, "passed over, preferring to be dwellers in London, inasmuch as it was fitter for their trading, and better stored with the merchandise in which they were wont to traffic." One concrete example of the resulting growth of trade may be quoted. Before the Conquest, weaving had not been practised in England as a separate craft for the market. By 1165 we find a kind of corporation of weavers at ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... did not go into the house, but remained in the yard, as did most of the people who had come to attend the sale. She sat down on a pile of boards, and began to glance about her very carefully, as one is wont to do when taking a last ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... questions of little moment, the priest threw out the usual net with which his fraternity were wont to entangle ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... when the feast was over, to Gudrun Sigurd came, And she noted the ring on his finger, and she knew it was nowise the same As the ring he was wont to carry; so she bade him tell thereof: Then he turned unto her kindly, and his words were words of love; Nor his life nor his death he heeded, but told her last night's tale: Yea he drew forth the sword for his slaying, and whetted the edges of bale; For he took that ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... little son and daughter whom he had once forsaken, and their voices at play in the garden sounded like the echo of those beloved voices that had first stirred his heart to its depths. The quiet room where Felicita had been wont to shut herself in with her books and her writings remained empty and desolate amid the joyous occupancy of the old house, where little feet pattered everywhere except across that sacred threshold. It ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... was a time when I knew nothing, when no one knew me: accordingly, it is usual to say, I was not. That time is past: therefore it is usual to say that I was created. But also of the millions who existed centuries ago nothing more is now known, and yet men are wont to say, they are. On what do we found the right to grant the beginning and to deny the end? It is assumed that the cessation of thinking beings contradicts Infinite Goodness. Did, then, Infinite Goodness cone first into being at the creation ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... into his seat and studied her from beneath his overhanging eyebrows as intently, as alertly, as silently as he was wont to do when watching the faces of his opponents in a game of high hazard. There was something uncanny, almost elfish, in the woman's voice and eyes, and yet even before her words were fully uttered the truth stood revealed to him. His eyes lost their stern glare, his hands, which had ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... Nellie recognized the perfume with which the gallant expressman was wont to make redolent her little parlor, but again she avowed no knowledge of its possessor. "Well," returned Low, with some disappointment, "such a man has been here. Be on your guard. Let us go ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... he finished, "I despise myself that I cannot find it in my heart to do it, now that you are at my mercy; but I have not been wont to do such things, and you are not worth beginning on. ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... for the old man ran to observe the course which was taken by his master, who turned to the left down a small and broken path, which gained the sea-shore through a cleft in the rock, and led to a sort of cove where, in former times, the boats of the castle were wont to be moored. Observing him take this course, Caleb hastened to the eastern battlement, which commanded the prospect of the whole sands, very near as far as the village of Wolf's Hope. He could easily see his master riding in that direction, as fast as the horse could carry him. The prophecy ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... personal charm, yet distinctly human. But had we talked about him in the villages which lay along his route, or even in the circle of his disciples, I think we should have heard tales of how Devas visited him and how he was wont to vanish and betake himself to some heaven. The Hindu attributes such feats to a religious leader, as naturally as Europeans would ascribe to him a magnetic personality and ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... grace by which we are called predestined, by which we are justified, and by which we receive eternal beatitude."(11) Of this last-mentioned grace (i.e. grace in the strictly supernatural sense), St. Augustine says: "This, the grace which Catholic bishops are wont to read in the books of God and preach to their people, and the grace which the Apostle commends, is not that by which we are created as men, but that by which as sinful men we are justified."(12) In other words, natural ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... Beethoven on nearing middle-age, was wont to indulge himself in day-dreams of a prosperous future, in which he could have sufficient means to enable him to live in comfort, keep his carriage like brother Johann, and have leisure for the refinements of life. ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... as if, surrounded with success and attention night after night, and for several years, she had wearied of the rle, and put it aside voluntarily whenever opportunity offered. She had been wont to be verry fashionable and striking in her dress and general appearance, but now Hal noticed vaguely a simpler note ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... and self-denials that the rearing of this child incurred, it was a trifle inconsistent that Maumee Nina should have opposed the friendly advances of gallants from the town. She was not of a class that is wont to consider the etiquette of such attentions, nor would she have refused to give her daughter in marriage to any Cuban. It was that her feeling toward the Spaniards was deepening into hate, and it rejoiced her to learn that a revolution was really intended. By her native shrewdness she ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... Thomas Augustine Arne, again, famous in days to come as Dr. Arne, was doubtless also at this date practising sedulously upon that "miserable cracked common flute," with which tradition avers he was wont to torment his school-fellows. Gray and Horace Walpole belong to a ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... isoceles triangles and algebraic conundrums to solve the essential problems of food and clothing and shingled roofs. It was a new viewpoint which planted doubts where what he had supposed to be certainties had been wont to blossom. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... nations are to live at peace with one another. I am only arguing that this step, necessary as it is, will not alone suffice for this end, but that among the causes of war there are others that go deeper into the roots of human nature than any that orthodox Socialists are wont to acknowledge. ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... known, however, that any hereditary peculiarity—as a supernumerary finger, or an anomalous shape of feature, like the Austrian lip—is wont to show itself in a family after a very wayward fashion. It skips at its own pleasure along the line, and, latent for half a century or so, crops out again in a great-grandson. And thus, it was said, from a period beyond memory or record, there had ever and anon been ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... colds—as those affections are called; it was ascribed to the variations of temperature during the summers; but the temperature would not have troubled him had he not been hard hit before he went to Berkshire. He got out of patience with the climate, and was wont to anathematize it with humorous extravagance, as his way was: "It is horrible. One knows not for ten minutes together whether he is too cool or too warm. I detest it! I hate Berkshire with my whole soul. Here, where I had hoped for perfect health, I have for the ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... and, unless classed among his numerous other pathological traits, one of the most puzzling of Lenau's characteristics is the perverseness of his nature. His intimate friends were wont to explain it, or rather to leave it unexplained by calling it his "Husarenlaune" when the poet would give vent to an apparently unprovoked and unreasonable burst of anger, and on seeing the consternation of those present, would just as suddenly throw himself into a fit of laughter ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... from her when, six months before, the state had called upon him to arouse from the ease and tranquility of his wedded life and do new service upon the field. Those were the same gentle and affectionate words which he had been wont to utter. And yet to her quickened apprehension, urged on by some secret instinct, it seemed as though the soul of the tender greeting was gone, leaving but the mere form behind. Could it be that during those few months of absence he had learned to ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... not bear above half that evacuation. Vernal intermittents are frequently cured by a vomit and the bark, without venaesection, which is a proof that, at present, they are accompanied with fewer symptoms of inflammation than they were wont to be. This advantageous change, however, is more than counterbalanced by the introduction of a numerous class of nervous aliments, in a greater measure, unknown to our ancestors, but which now prevail universally, and are complicated with almost every other distemper. The bodies of men are ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... Master's head under his arm, the Master, 'almost upon his knees,' had his hand on the King's face and mouth. 'Strike him low,' cried the King, 'because he wears a secret mail doublet'—such as men were wont to wear on a doubtful though apparently peaceful occasion, like a Warden's Day on the Border. Ramsay threw down the King's falcon, which he had taken from Murray and bore on his wrist, drew his dagger or couteau de chasse, and struck the Master on the face and neck. The ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... softer and gentler, and her speech seemed to come from one who understood what the words imparted to her hearers. She was fond of saying the Psalms of David, and would weep at the touching words of suffering, of joy and of exultation which that man, so many thousand years dead, had been wont to sing as perchance he stood as she now did, looking up to the same nightly skies and weeping as she now wept, as his words rang through the ever-settled calmness of the night, and had no answer borne to his ears, but ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... fame already extends over the earth, although as yet only in its infancy. Scarcely have two decades passed away since he ceased to dwell among men, yet he now stands before us, not as a mere individual, like those whom the world is wont to call great, but as a type, as an emblem—the recognised emblem and representative of the human mind in its present ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... grace of compunction was he wont to possess, between the secrets of prayer or the solemnities of masses, that with eyes trained to weeping he would be wholly dissolved in tears; and in the office {218} of the altar his appearance was as though he was witnessing ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... the veranda, parrot cage in hand, came a most surprising lady. Antique yet youthful, dressed as ladies were wont to dress of a morning in long forgotten years, ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... opportunity, and called in Park Lane on the day after Madame Goesler's return. There was already between them an amount of acquaintance which justified his calling, and, perhaps, there had been on the lady's part something of that cordiality of manner which is wont to lead to intimate friendship. Mr. Maule had made himself agreeable, and Madame Goesler had seemed to be grateful. He was admitted, and on such an occasion it was impossible not to begin the conversation about the "dear Duke." Mr. Maule could afford ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Cathedral service fell on a Friday night, when S. Cohn, the Emporium closed, was wont to absorb the Sabbath peace. He would sit, after high tea, of which cold fried fish was the prime ingredient, dozing over the Jewish weekly. He still approved platonically of its bellicose sentiments. This January night, the Sabbath arriving early ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... was a puzzle to all who knew her. She was a puzzle even to herself, and was wont to say, indifferently, that the problem was not worth a solution. For this beautiful girl of fifteen was somewhat bitter and misanthropic, a condition perhaps due to the uncongenial atmosphere in which she had been reared. She was ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... voice That wont to breathe the sounds of love, And lifeless are those beauteous limbs That with such ease ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... wont to say that there was only one man in all the world who knew all about all the animals—and that he was not Andrew Barton, Esq. At this, Bill would smile proudly. At first this modesty on Uncle Andy's part was a disappointment to the Babe. But it ended in giving him confidence ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and external, let us call a bodily, external Christendom: not as if we would part them asunder, but just as when I speak of a man, and call him, according to the soul, a spiritual, according to the body, a physical, man; or as the Apostle is wont to speak of the inner and of the outward man. [Rom. 7:22] Thus also the Christian assembly, according to the soul, is a communion[37] of one accord in one faith, although according to the body it cannot be assembled ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... trees only making the road the more picturesque. The brook, at which Willis often sat, still runs on through the grounds as of yore. In the house, everything is remodeled and remodernized. The room from whose windows Willis was wont to look over the Hudson, and where he did most of his charming writing, is now a bedchamber, modern in its every appointment, and suggesting its age only by the high ceiling and curious mantel. Only a few city blocks from "Idlewild" is the house where lived E. P. Roe, the author ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... bound o'er dew gemmed sward At break of summer morn, Or follow on, through forests green, The hunter's merry horn; No more we'll brave the rapid stream, Nor battle with the tide, Nor cross the slipp'ry mountain path, As we were wont to ride. ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... left out, tidying that which he preferred left in seeming disorder. Lil seemed miraculously to understand about those things. He liked, for example, a certain grimy, gritty old rag with which he was wont to polish his golf clubs. It was caked with dirt, and most disreputable, but it was of just the right material, or weight, or size, or something, and he had for it the unreasoning affection that a child has for a tattered rag doll among a whole family of golden-haired, blue-eyed beauties. ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... Anglo-American Punch-and-Judy, which consists solely of a play really unique in the exact sense of that much-abused word. They were getting their fill of the delicious Italian art which is best described by an American verb—to loaf. And yet they were not wont to be idle, and they had both the sharp, quick American manner, on which laziness ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... thou declarest me to be enemy, and so cut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard, and for that question, How long was he sick? leave no other answer, but that the hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute? My God, my God, thou wast not wont to come in whirlwinds, but in soft and gentle air. Thy first breath breathed a soul into me, and shall thy breath blow it out? Thy breath in the congregation, thy word in the church, breathes communion and consolation here, and ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... leisure. Providence had done for him what he would never have done for himself. The rut in which he had travelled so long had given place to open country. He repeated to himself one of the quotations with which he had been wont to stir the literary young men at the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... mental and spiritual make-up of the tropical East, on the one hand, and of the more northern West, on the other. The climatic and national idiosyncrasies are more potential in the complexion of the two faiths than we are wont to think. ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... two points of view as little likely to coincide as the parallel lines of science, and at some such stage as this the discussions were wont to cease. ...
— Julia The Apostate • Josephine Daskam
... of the king of Arcadia, returned sad at heart to her own land. Only as comrades, as those against whose skill in the chase she was wont to pit her own skill, had she looked upon men. But Meleager, the hero who loved her and her fair honour more than life itself, and whose love had made him haste in all his gallant strength and youthful beauty to the land of the Shades, was one ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... story was removed, the mansion was stripped throughout of its splendid decorations—some of the furniture is now at Castle Forbes, the seat of the earl of Granard, Lady Moira's great-grandson, a worthy descendant—and the saloons which were wont to be thronged with the most brilliant and splendid society of the Irish metropolis in its heyday are now the abode of perhaps the very poorest outcasts who are to be found ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... this unknown master—if we are to believe Vasari—was an inspiring influence; for not only "did he never cease to set before Pietro the great advantages and honours that were to be obtained from painting ... but when the boy was wont to frequently inquire of him in what city the best artists were formed ... he constantly received the same reply, namely, that Florence was the place above all others wherein men attain to perfection in all the arts, but more especially in painting." I spare to my reader ...
— Perugino • Selwyn Brinton
... flirtation with Emilie Heim, the wife of a conductor, who lived so near the Wagners that their kitchen-gardens adjoined. Emilie was a beautiful blonde with a beautiful voice, and she and Wagner were wont to sing duets together, as he wrote them; and she was the soloist in a concert he gave. How much cause Minna may have had for jealousy, we can hardly know, but it seems certain that she felt she had a sufficiency, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... whether a more than usually substantial supper made us sleep sounder than we were wont to do, but the sun had already risen when, the next morning, I started up, hearing as I fancied some strange noises near us. My two companions were still asleep on their bamboo couches on either side ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... filling the situation of a governess. But the pride of the Dacres revolted at this; besides, Miss Marion was a comfort to her uncle, when his daughters were absent or occupied. So the dear young lady gave up her own wishes, and strove to do all she could for her generous benefactor, as she was wont to call my master. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... noiselessly and crept along to a door which Fil-en-Quatre opened cautiously, when they found themselves in the big salon, a spacious, luxuriantly-furnished room, where many of the notables of Paris, both social and political, were wont to assemble. ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... at Whitehall. Somebody else's business would have to wait another day, that was all. He was wont to settle affairs as they arose, methodically, punctually, in the order of their importance. At the moment his own affair and Kitty's was of supreme importance. Until it was settled he could not ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... brother's grave; But the dumb palsy of nocturnal fear, Or those consuming fires that gnaw the heart Of panting indignation, find we there To move delight?—Then listen while my tongue The unalter'd will of Heaven with faithful awe Reveals; what old Harmodius wont to teach My early age; Harmodius, who had weigh'd Within his learned mind whate'er the schools Of Wisdom, or thy lonely-whispering voice, 180 O faithful Nature! dictate of the laws Which govern and support this mighty frame Of universal being. Oft the hours From morn to eve have stolen unmark'd away, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... not my only blunder, I thought, looking back, with a grim smile, to my first absurd exploit. But I would try very hard to make it my last; at least, where 'the gang,' as Dave was wont to call Delbras and Company, was concerned. And when thinking of 'the gang,' I could not but note how both Dave and myself had reversed our first order in naming them, and now spoke, invariably, not of 'Greenback Bob and the rest,' but of 'Delbras and Company.' Somehow, Delbras seemed to ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... time Kobodaishi was wont to meditate alone by the river- side; and one day, while so meditating, he was aware of a boy standing before him, gazing at him curiously. The garments of the boy were as the garments worn by the needy; ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... that viscomty of Paris, so nobly appanaged with seven noble bailiwicks? Can anything sweeter be imagined than rendering judgments and decisions, as Messire Robert d'Estouteville daily did in the Grand Chatelet, under the large and flattened arches of Philip Augustus? and going, as he was wont to do every evening, to that charming house situated in the Rue Galilee, in the enclosure of the royal palace, which he held in right of his wife, Madame Ambroise de Lore, to repose after the fatigue of having sent some poor wretch to pass the night in "that little cell of the ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... perceived that thy pleasure was solely in horses and farming: Work which a servant, indeed, performs for an opulent master, That thou doest; the father meanwhile must his son be deprived of, Who should appear as his pride, in the sight of the rest of the townsmen. Early with empty hopes thy mother was wont to deceive me, When in the school thy studies, thy reading and writing, would never As with the others succeed, but thy seat would be always the lowest. That comes about, forsooth, when a youth has no feeling of honor Dwelling within his ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... been sleeping. Kill me if you wish, for I deserve it. And yet, Baas, never was I more wide-awake in my life until I drank that water. I am not wont to sleep on guard, Baas." ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... saying abroad in Scotland, that the new year, 1436, should see the death of a king; and this same carnival night, James, while playing at chess with a young friend, whom he was wont to call the king of love, laughingly observed that "it must be you or I, since there are but two kings in Scotland—therefore, look well ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... we who have migrated to Manitoba receive. No longer cribbed, cabined, and confined, we have in this our "greater Canada" a far wider range of study than in the fringe along the Canadian lakes. Think of a thousand miles of prairie! The enthusiastic Scotsman was wont to despise our level Ontario, because it had no Grampians, but the mountains of Scotland all piled together would reach but to the foot hills of our Rockies. The Ontario geologist can only study the rocks in garden plots, while the Nor'wester revels in the age of reptiles in his hundreds ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... authority which the poor subjects dare not gainsay?' Another member, Sir Andrew Hobby, on the opposite side, started up, and said, 'that betwixt Michaelmas and St Andrews tide, where salt before the patent was wont to be sold for 16d. a bushel, it is now sold for 14d. or 15d. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, His length of shambling limb, his ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... making the garland, with which she crowned the new Anacreon. Insensible to his honours, the dog, who was extremely hungry, turned suddenly to Mrs. Luttridge, by whom he had, till this night, regularly been fed with the choicest morsels, and lifting up his huge paw, laid it, as he had been wont to do, upon her arm. She shook it off: he, knowing nothing of the change in his master's affairs, laid the paw again upon her arm; and with that familiarity to which he had long been encouraged, raised his head almost close to the ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... not by sight,' he said once; 'and by no one so much as by those who are in politics is this necessary.' It is the evidence of things not seen, the eternal principles, the great invisible moral sanctions that men are wont to call the laws of God, which alone supply a safe guide through this ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... the merry hours they had passed together in the old place. Of course we hunted out Goldsmith's abode, and Dr. Johnson's, saw the site of the Earl of Essex's palace, and the steps by which he was wont to descend to the river, now so far removed. But most interesting of all to us there was "Pip's" room, to which Dickens led us, and the staircase where the convict stumbled up in the dark, and the chimney nearest the river where, although less exposed ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... flitted across his mind. It was a loud, shrill whistle, penetrating even to the woods, and the instant the old familiar sound fell on Rocket's ear he went tearing around the house, answering that call with the neigh he had been wont to give when summoned by his master. Utterly speechless, Hugh stood gazing at him as he came up, his neck arched proudly, and his silken mane flowing as gracefully as on the day when he was led away ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... smiling, as he leaned back in his chair. "But Pierre is a Frenchman, and would prefer commanding a brigade in the army of the Marshal de Saxe to being over the host of King Solomom. But," continued he, gravely, "I am strangely happy to-day, Deborah,"—he was wont to call her Deborah when very earnest,—"and I will not anticipate any mischief to mar my happiness. Pshaw! It is only the reaction of over-excited feelings. I am weak in the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... SPINACH.—These comprise the Strawberry spinach, which, under that name, was wont to be grown in our flower-gardens; the Good King Harry, the Garden Oracle, the Prickly, and the Round, are the varieties commonly used. The Oracle is a hardy sort, much esteemed in France, and is a native of Tartary, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... appears, did not partake the opinion of St. Paul that "it is a shame for a woman to go with her head uncovered;" but, holding rather a contrary doctrine, resolutely refused to imprison in linen or muslin the plentiful tresses of her yellow hair, which it was her wont to fasten up smartly with a comb behind, and on Sundays to wear curled ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... with joy a voice demanding if this were Madame Besshare. I replied, not without some scruples of conscience, 'Oui, Monsieur, c'est moi,' though the name did not sound exactly like the one to which I had been wont to respond. In half an hour we were at home in ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... recollects the equally singular manner in which another most distinguished metaphysician—the late Dean Hansel—was wont to quaver forth his admirably turned and often highly eloquent phrases of philosophical exposition, can fail to be reminded of him by the above description. No two temperaments or histories however could be more dissimilar. The two philosophers resembled each other in nothing save the "om-mject" ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... old the black pall of desolation fell suddenly on our lives, and blasted our great happiness with a misery so utter and complete that we, who were wont to count ourselves among the fortunate ones of the earth, were cast down so low that the beggar at our doors might have ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... him. It opened up a possibility. He began indefinitely to see that they were not the only factors in the equation. He was probably a little vexed that he had not seen it before; for he wished to be a just man. He was wont to quote with more or less austerity—chiefly the result of his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Dacotahs, rites of honor have been paid to the dead, various offerings have been placed at their graves. The Vedas enjoin the offering of a cake to the ghosts of ancestors back to the third generation. The Greeks were wont to pour wine, oil, milk, and blood into canals made in the graves of their dead. The early Christians adopted these "Feasts of the Dead" as Augustine and Tertullian call them from the heathen, and Celebrated them over the graves of their martyrs and of their other deceased friends. Such customs as ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... before the day had lost his eye. To ship we come at last, which rid foure leagues from shore Refresht vs after trauaile past taken that day before. Then, as it was our guise, our boate at sterne we tie, Eke therin leaue our marchandise, as they were wont to be. With troughes then two or three [The theft of the Negroes.] this Captaine comes by night Aboord our boate, where he with wares himselfe now fraighteth quight. The watch now hearing this, the boate they hal'd vp fast: But gone was all ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... muscular, was an adept in the athletic sports for which Cornwall is famous, and early signalised himself by his prowess as a boxer. As he grew up, George Borrow himself became an ardent admirer of "the Fancy," and when asked "What is the best way to get through life quietly?" was wont to say, "Learn to box, and keep a civil tongue in ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... mysterious basket which rode on the pack-horse with the baggage. Were I visiting Greece again, I would eschew all these vanities—carry nothing but a Reisesack, or travel-bag, as the Germans are wont to call every variety of knapsack—a shawl, and a copy of Pausanias, and live among the Greeks as the Greeks do; ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... as the dirt from them falls down on the senators' heads." In our English House of Commons, this pleasant penchant for dirt-throwing is practised by the members instead of the strangers. It is quite amusing to see with what energy O'Connell and Lord Stanley are wont to bespatter and heap dirt on each other's heads ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various
... man in question in that group of our acquaintances which we are wont to style our friends. He comes of a good family; he is a man of infinite parts and ill-luck, full of excellent dispositions and most charming conversation; young as he is, he is seen much, and while awaiting better things, he dwells in Bohemia. Bohemianism, which by rights should ...
— A Prince of Bohemia • Honore de Balzac
... example, making long excursions along the coast, as far north as Icy Cape, if not further; and southward, along the shores of Kotzebue Sound. Similarly for many winters, wearied with confinement to the house during the long night, he was wont to set out, accompanied by some native guide and wife with dog-team and sledge, to make trips of several hundred miles over ice and snow, exposed to blizzards such as we have no conception of, camping out when weary in an improvised snow-house, or sleeping, perhaps, in some native settlement, ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... followed by periods of great exhaustion.] named Halli and Leikner, whom the Jarl had retained about his person,—fancying that two champions of such great strength and prowess would much acid to his consequence on returning home. In vain. the Jarl warned him that personages of that description were wont to give trouble and become unruly,—nothing would serve but he must needs carry them away with him; nay, if they would but come, they might ask as wages any boon which might be in his power to grant. The bargain accordingly was made; but, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... at once one of the men showed him that it was no fancy, for he raised his eyes looked across at his companion, and made a mocking grimace, just as he had been wont to do on shipboard, getting as answer a ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... secured. We, that were hostages, lived separate from the people of the town; for we felt enmity towards each other even then. In my captivity there was no employment for me but patience—no pursuit but hope. Alone with my children, I was wont to look forth over the sea towards the camp of our king; but day succeeded to day, and his warriors appeared not on the plains; nor did Priulf return with the legions to encamp before the gates of the town. So I mourned in my loneliness; for my heart yearned towards the homes of my people; I longed ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... than those of adventure and commercialism; to make the most of what had been done rather than strain to the doing of needless more; to live, in short, like a philosopher and a gentleman who has more golden dollars a year than either philosophers or gentlemen are wont to enjoy. ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... shed near by had in former times been used by the Bascoms for a hen-house, and there was still a low entrance through which the fowls were wont to go in ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... my conductress, as my step faltered a little in passing to the hearth. She seated me on the sofa, but I soon passed behind it, saying the fire was too hot; in its shade I found another seat which suited me better. Mrs. Bretton was never wont to make a fuss about any person or anything; without remonstrance she suffered me to have my own way. She made the tea, and she took up the newspaper. I liked to watch every action of my godmother; all her movements were so young: she must have been now above fifty, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... stumbling away across rock-tumbled Gatun dam that squats its vast bulk where for long centuries, eighty-five feet below, was the village of Old Gatun with its proud church and its checkered history, where Morgan and Peruvian viceroys and "Forty-niners" were wont to pause from their arduous journeyings. They call it a dam. It is rather a range of hills, a part and portion of the highlands that, east and west, enclose the valley of the Chagres, its summit resembling the terminal yards of some great city. There was one day when I sought a negro brakeman attached ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... and were exposed to the spatter of shot. It seemed impossible that the Constitution could slip clear of this pack of able frigates which trailed her like hounds. Toward midnight the fickle breeze awoke and wafted the ships along under studding sails and all the light cloths that were wont to arch skyward. For two hours the men slept on deck like logs while those on watch grunted at the pump-brakes and the hose wetted the canvas to make ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... gone a curious thing happened. The princess carelessly touched the wall of her room, which was wont to reflect the warm red light of the fire on the hearth, and found her hand quite wet. She turned round, and—was it her fancy? or did the fire burn more dimly than before? Hurriedly she passed into the picture gallery, where ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... till late in the night and slept half of the next morning. It was his wont to see Joan every day about noon. He had a care for his appearance. When he came in he was dark, forbidding, weary, and cold. Manifestly he came to her to get rid of the imponderable burden of the present. He left it behind ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... of garden in Grey Town," he was wont to declare. "Give me the old wallflower, the rose, violet, and carnation, and let others be stocking their beds with dahlias and chrysanthemums, which have no smell to remind you of the ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... daughter, now twelve years of age; his fairy sister, Adrian was wont to call her; a lovely, animated, little thing, all sensibility and truth. With these, her children, the noble widow constantly resided at Windsor; and admitted no visitors, except her own partizans, travellers from her native Germany, and a few of the foreign ministers. Among ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley |
