"Wanton" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entablature of woodwork, and adorned abundantly with carved and tapestried images. Upon this pyramidal or flame-shaped structure lay the corpse, hidden now under a mountain of flowers and incense brought by the women, who from the first had had their fondness for the wanton graces of the deceased. The dead body was surmounted by a waxen effigy of great size, arrayed in the triumphal ornaments. [32] At last the Centurions to whom that office belonged, drew near, torch in hand, to ignite the pile at ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... monuments of architecture belonging to the earlier Renaissance have a poetry that compensates for structural defects; just as its wildest literary extravagances—the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, for instance—have a charm of wanton fancy and young joy that atones to ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... very paradises of the great trout, who frequent the old brickwork and timber foundations. The water in its rush through the arches, had of course worked for itself a deep hole, and then, some twenty yards below, spread itself out in wanton joyous ripples and eddies over a broad surface some fifty yards across, and dashed away towards a little island some two hundred yards below, or rolled itself slowly back towards the bridge again, up the backwater by the side of the bank, as if longing for another merry rush through ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... compassed every point proposed by continuing its resistance to Britain on the same footing it had begun. This measure occasioned an alienation from its interests in the minds of many of its former adherents. It was looked upon as a wanton abuse of the success with which it had opposed the efforts of the British Ministry to bring them to submission, and as an ungrateful return for the warmth with which their cause had been espoused ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... most magnificent virgin forests I had yet beheld. A small path, on the bank of a little brook conducted us through it. Palms, with their majestic tops, raised themselves proudly above the other trees, which, lovingly interlaced together, formed the most beautiful bowers; orchids grew in wanton luxuriance upon the branches and twigs; creepers and ferns climbed up the trees, mingling with the boughs, and forming thick walls of blossoms and flowers, which displayed the most brilliant colours, and exhaled the sweetest perfume; ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... of it or no) and off to Stangate and so to the King's Head at Lambeth marsh, and had variety of meats and drinks, but I did so towse her and handled her, but could get nothing more from her though I was very near it; but as wanton and bucksome as she is she dares not adventure upon the business, in which I very much commend and like her. Staid pretty late, and so over with her by water, and being in a great sweat with my towsing of her durst not go home by water, but took coach, and at home my brother and I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Spain 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 ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... in every corner, gath'ring honey: Let nothing waste, that costs or yieldeth money. [3524] And when thou seest my heart to mirth incline, Thy tongue, wit, blood, warm with good cheer and wine: Then of sweet sports let no occasion scape, But be as wanton, toying as an ape." ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... one of the daisies we are treading on," answered Buttar. "Do you know, Bracebridge, I never like treading on wild flowers; it seems such wanton destruction of some of the most beautiful works of nature. I feel all the time as a donkey who has got into a flower-bed ought to feel,—that I am a very mischievous animal. I would always rather go out of my way than injure them, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... standard than theirs existed. He felt the same about people who objected to Catholic ceremonies; their dislike of them did not present itself to him as arising out of a different religious experience from his own; but it appeared as a propensity toward unmannerly behaviour, as a kind of wanton disregard of decency and good taste. He was indeed still at the age when externals possess not so much an undue importance, but when they affect a boy as a mould through which the plastic experience of his youth is passed and whence it emerges to harden slowly to ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... represented in the stuff destroyed by our troops that day, I could run a daily newspaper for years, if it didn't have a subscriber or a patent medicine advertisement. And who was benefitted by such wanton destruction of property. As we rode along I told the colonel I thought it was a confounded shame to do as we had done, and that such a use of power, because we had the power, was unworthy of American soldiers. He said it was a soldier's duty to obey orders and not talk ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck
... father and me, and it seemed to me as though there were a spring of water there, though the water was very near dried up. But looking closer, I saw that it was quite full; so I bethought me that I would drink thereof, and I leaned over, when lo! that Evil-wanton (I mean the Devil) caught me by the beard and would not let me go. I begged and prayed, but still he held me tight. 'Give me,' said he, 'what thou hast at home, or I'll never let thee go!'—And I said to him, ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... windows gray and gold, The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled, The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places, The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces, All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord Were struck and broken by the wanton sword Of sacrilegious lust. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... was timorous as a chicken. The metaphor is entirely metaphorical. Jones had no faith in the wanton. He believed in regular hours, in silence and no interruptions. No intrusions of any kind. A letter was an intrusion, so also was the news of the day. These things he considered, when he did consider them, after his work was done. Sometimes he ignored them entirely. Usually he had a ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... public buildings and private houses in Newark and Queenston, by order of John Armstrong, U.S. Secretary of War, compelling 400 women and children to seek shelter in the woods, with the thermometer ranging around zero. Even Lossing, the American historian, condemned this as "a wanton act, contrary to the usages of war, and leaving a stain upon the American character." The outrage brought its own punishment within the week. Colonel Murray, with 550 soldiers, captured the United States Fort Niagara, ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... the consulship with too eager desire. He fell a sacrifice, to deter the plebeians from aiming at breaking up a patrician monopoly of power. It is painful to see Cincinna'tus, at the close of a long and illustrious life, countenancing, if not suggesting this wanton murder. But, as Niebuhr remarks, "no where have characters been more cruel, no where has the voice of conscience against the views of faction been so defied, as in the aristocratic republics, and not those of antiquity only. Men, otherwise of spotless conduct, have frequently ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... bed, Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red, Great Villiers lies! alas, how changed from him, That life of pleasure and that soul of whim! Gallant and gay in Cliveden's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love; As great as gay, at council in a ring Of mimick'd statesmen, and their merry king. No wit to flatter left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. Thus, victor of his health, of fortune, friends, And fame, the lord ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... zealous and long continued—that she might dispose by will; and it was but a troubled comfort that, should he be living at the time of her death, the susceptible Henry would profit no less than the wanton Albert. Henry was at any cost to be kept in life that he might profit; the woeful question, the question of delicacy, for a woman devoutly conscientious, was how could anyone else, how, above all, could fifteen other persons, be made to profit by his profiting? She had been as earnest a steward ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... syren of the stage, Charmer of an idle age, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire, Bane of every manly art, Sweet enfeebler of the heart; O! too pleasing is thy strain, Hence, to southern climes again, Tuneful mischief, vocal spell, To this island bid farewell, Leave us, as we ought to be, Leave the Britons ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... passage I should hardly suppose to be necessary. Nothing could be more wanton than to assign this passage to an imaginary Gospel merely on the ground alleged. The hypothesis was less violent in regard to the Synoptic Gospels, which clearly contain a large amount of common matter that might also have found its way into other hands. We have evidence of the existence ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... That gives the heat and passion of the world, Through its own life-blood, still renewed and shed. . . . . . . The Vine from every living limb bleeds wine; Is it the poorer for that spirit shed? The drunkard and the wanton drink thereof; Are they the richer for that gift's excess? Measure thy life by loss instead of gain; Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth; For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice; And whoso suffers ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... done for him that he should cast away everything for her sake? Once she had told him that she loved him, only to betray him. Was that a woman for whom a man should wanton his fortunes? And then he smiled derisively, mocking his reflections in the mirror even ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... of England and France have bombarded the straits of the Dardanelles, and the British fleet has shelled the harbor of Akbah on the Red Sea. In the face of such successive proofs of wanton hostility we have been forced to abandon the peaceful attitude for which we always strove, and now in common with our allies, Germany and Austria, we turn to arms in order to safeguard ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields. A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... etiquette. An honoured guest was welcomed by the host rising to receive him and giving him a seat near himself, but less distinguished visitors were often victims to the rough horseplay of the baser sort, and of the wanton young gentleman at court. The food was simple, boiled beef and pork, and mutton without sauce, ale served in horns from the butt. Roast meat, game, sauces, mead, and flagons set on the table, are looked on by Starcad ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... I shall," the young man unreservedly agreed—"like a wanton meddling ass!" His candour, his freedom had decidedly a note of their own. "But my conviction, after those moments with your picture, was too strong for me not to speak—and, since you allow it, I face the danger and risk ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... destin'd for each other. By heav'n, I thought their meeting innocent. Who could suspect fair Leonora's virtue, 'Till after-proofs conspir'd to blacken it? Sad proofs, which came too late, which broke not out, (Eternal curses on Alvarez' haste!) 'Till holy rites had made the wanton yours; And then, I own, I labour'd to conceal it, In duty and ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... and to prey upon the peaceful people, Jerusalem was amply provisioned. But each party squandered the stores that were within its reach, and, whenever they could do so, burnt those of their rivals, so that the food which might have supplied the whole city for months, vanished quickly in orgies of wanton waste and destruction. Now all, or almost all, was gone, and by tens and hundreds of thousands the ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... When I behold the wanton Sparrows change Their chirps to billing, they are chast? or see The Reeking Goate over the mountaine top Pursue his Female, yet conceit him free From wild concupiscence? I prithee tell me, Does not the genius of thy honor dead Haunt thee with apparitions like a goast ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Act for the dissolution of some of the Irish bishoprics, passed in 1833, winch first made the authors of the Tracts resolve to commence their publication. Mr. Perceval himself cannot even now speak of that Act temperately; he calls it "a wanton act of sacrilege," "a monstrous act," "an outrage upon the Church;" and his friends, it may be presumed, spoke of it at the time in language at least equally vehement. Now, I am not expressing any opinion upon ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... of holiday shall have given place to the family sense, and that family shall be mankind; when shall never be seen the anomaly of celebrating in a glorification of little family tables—whose crumbs fall to those without—the birth of him who preached brotherhood; and the mockery of observing with wanton spending the birth of him who had not where to lay his head; when the rudiments of divine perception, of self-perception, of social perception, shall have grown to their next estate; when the area of consciousness shall ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... thou might'st be ta'en with salt; And here—and how thou mad'st me start!— Thou art.' 'O Mortal, by Immortals' cunning led, Who shew'd you how for Gods to bait your bed? Ah, Psyche, guess'd you nought I craved but to be caught? Wanton, it was not you, But I that did so passionately sue; And for your beauty, not unscath'd, I fought With Hades, ere I own'd in you a thought!' 'O, heavenly Lover true, Is this thy mouth upon my forehead press'd? ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... "Wanton! Why, you infernal liar!" cried Spurlock, striking at the arm. But the free arm of the stranger hit him a flail-like blow on the chest and sent him sprawling into the yielding sand. Berserker, Spurlock rose, head ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... religious ceremonies the work of partitioning the land and appraising their goods? The variety of the forms of privilege does not sanction injustice. The faith of Jupiter, the proprietor, [13] proves no more against the equality of citizens, than do the mysteries of Venus, the wanton, against ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... lots of things that weren't true. The spectacle of this mean little intelligence refusing to take cognisance of the truths that men like Darwin and Huxley had worked all their lives to discover, and faced the common hatred to proclaim, seemed to her cruel ingratitude to the great and wanton contemning of the power of thought, which was the only tool man had been given to help him break this prison of disordered society. She leaned across the table and demanded in a heckling tone: "But you ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... broke those wretched eggs! Look at that furious little bird! I declare it is ready to peck my eyes out! There, madam! now you may go to work and lay some more eggs;" and she took the sole remaining egg from the nest and flung it with wanton cruelty ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... near it that of a new love, Annette, and afterward on finding the tree he shed tears, melted toward her, and made an idyl. He was also seized with a passion of teasing her and dominating over her devotedness with wanton and tyrannical caprice, venting upon her the ill humor of his disappointments, and grew absurdly jealous and lost her after she had borne with him with incredible patience and after terrible scenes with her by which he gained nothing. ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... day, but from hot jealousy and the pique inevitably born of it. Laurie Morse had kept the singing-school that winter. He had loved Amelia; he had bound himself to her by all the most holy vows sworn from aforetime, and then, in some wanton exhibit of power—gone home with another girl. And for Amelia's responsive throb of feminine anger, she had spent fifteen years of sober country living with a man who had wrapped her about with the quiet tenderness of a strong nature, but who was not of her own generation either in mind ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... was on his feet again, purple with rage. With uplifted scimitar he sprang toward our host. The old man stepped between. Ja-khaz, with wanton cruelty, brought his steel upon the ancient head, and stretched him upon the floor. For an instant the younger one stood horror-stricken, then snatching from the floor the patriarch's staff—a heavy stick with an iron end—he jumped forward, and, quicker than words can tell ...
— The Last American - A Fragment from The Journal of KHAN-LI, Prince of - Dimph-Yoo-Chur and Admiral in the Persian Navy • J. A. Mitchell
... territory to Megalopolis, while he forced all those persons who had been created citizens of Sparta under the rule of the despots to leave the city and proceed to Achaea, except three hundred. These, because they refused to obey him and leave Lacedaemon he sold for slaves, and with the money, as a wanton insult, built a public portico in Megalopolis. Moreover, in his wrath against the Lacedaemonians, he did them a most cruel wrong, for he abolished the Lycurgean system of education and forced them to educate their children like those of the Achaeans, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... and sparkling, And Rowena's heart is true: And I love the lofty mountains, And the deep and darkling coves, Where the redbirds gloom and glimmer, And Rowena lives and loves. 'Tis the home, they say, of feudist, Where the hand of man is red; But I know a hundred places, Where blood's as wanton shed: Yet no spot in all creation Has a sky of such a hue— In the mountains of Kentucky Lives ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... that Congress and the country had the virtue and firmness to bear the infliction, that the energies of our people soon found relief from this wanton tyranny in vast importations of the precious metals from almost every part of the world, and that at the close of this tremendous effort to control our Government the bank found itself powerless and no longer able to loan out its surplus ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... wise that he delights to be worshiped with sports and gambols; nor is he displeased with the proverb that gave him the surname of fool, "A greater fool than Bacchus;" which name of his was changed to Morychus, for that sitting before the gates of his temple, the wanton country people were wont to bedaub him with new wine and figs. And of scoffs, what not, have not the ancient comedies thrown on him? O foolish god, say they, and worthy to be born as you were of your father's thigh! And yet, ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... Replying in the affirmative, Prince Max then promised to acquiesce in armistice terms that would leave the military situation unchanged, and further agreed to order a cessation of unrestricted submarine warfare and of the wanton destruction caused by the German armies in their retreat. Finally he declared in answer to Wilson's demand, that the request for an armistice and peace came from a government "which is free from any arbitrary ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... any age, might well feel proud, and yet they were as unsparing of the heretic as Ezzelino da Romano was of his enemies. With such men it was not hope of gain or lust of blood or pride of opinion or wanton exercise of power, but sense of duty, and they but represented public opinion from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century."[574] That is to say, that the virtues of the individuals were overruled by the vices of ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... Benjamin yacht at this time showed that pirates were not prone to wanton mischief, where there was no plunder to be gained. In November, the yacht lay at Honore, taking in a cargo of pepper, when the well-known pirate ships Pelican, Soldado, and Resolution came ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... which tailless horses are subjected, for we deprive them for ever of their caudal appendage, and the ridiculous stump sticking up where the tail ought to be, is as ungraceful as it is indecent, especially in the case of mares. Our friend, the late Dr. George Fleming, says in The Wanton Mutilation of Animals, "nothing can be more painful and disgusting to the real horseman and admirer of this most symmetrically formed and graceful animal than the existence of this most detestable and torturing ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... education, bemoaning bitterly when it is too late their sons' debasement. For some of them keep flatterers and parasites in their retinue—an accursed set of wretches, the defilers and pest of youth; others keep mistresses and common prostitutes, wanton and costly; others waste their money in eating; others come to grief through dice and revelling; some even go in for bolder profligacy, being whoremongers and defilers of the marriage bed,[14] who would madly pursue their darling vice if it cost them their lives. ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... said the head-mistress in that slightly vibrating and authoritative voice of hers. "I have a word or two to say to you all. Miss Good has just brought me a painful story of wanton and cruel mischief. There are fifty girls in this school, who, until lately, lived happily together. There is now one girl among the fifty whose object it is to sow seeds of discord and misery among her companions. Miss Good ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... sacred Green, a bow're we see Doth spread it selfe for thee. The Earth new Turff's it selfe for thee to tread, The straying starrs fresh fields make glad. Here with their dams, of Kids th'amazed flocks Hang on steep sides of Rocks; Here as they swim, the wanton Hinds do play In the ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... after one of these "rumpuses," 'yor temper woan't mouldy wi keepin.' Reuben coming by at the moment threw an unhappy glance at the lad, whose bruised face and torn clothes showed he had been fighting. To the uncle's mind there was a wanton, nay, a ruffianly look about him, which was wholly new. Instead of rebuking the culprit, Reuben slouched away and put as much road as possible between ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... on their knees around her. If Voltaire had not existed we might have thought it a new miracle. I don't know if God gave her much credit for her tardy virtue, for love after all must be a sickening thing to a woman as weary of it as a wanton of the old Opera. Mademoiselle Laguerre was born in 1740, and her hey-day was in 1760, when Monsieur (I forget his name) was called the "ministre de la guerre," on account of his liaison with her. She abandoned that name, which was quite unknown down ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the stories of wanton destruction that reached us. I would rather not believe that the Federal Government could be so disgraced by its own soldiers. Dr. Day says they left nothing at all in his house, and carried everything off from Dr. Enders's. He does ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... in a sense a tragic room, but it had never seemed that to Becky. She came of a race of men who had hunted from instinct but with a sense of honor. The Judge and those of his kind hated wanton killing. Their guns would never have swept away the feathered tribes of tree and sky. It was the trappers and the pot-hunters who had done that. There had motored once to the Judge's mansion a man and his wife who had raged at the ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... ever admitted that their unwonted activity was due to my successful stratagem, the fact remains that the summary discharge of several attendants accused and proved guilty of brutality immediately followed and for a while put a stop to wanton assaults against which for a period of four months I had protested in vain. Patients who still lived in the violent ward told me that comparative ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... too; the fellow was simply an edition de luxe of "Turveydrop on Deportment." As the "lady" slowly unfolded her tale of grievances against our lawless soldiery and mentioned certain instances of wanton disregard of property rights—among them, as to the imminent peril of bursting our sides we partly overheard, the looting of her own wardrobe—the look of sympathetic agony in Haberton's handsome face was the very flower and fruit of histrionic art. His deferential and assenting nods ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... justice is so rigorous toward the wanton, His mercy is never so great as toward those who need it most, who desire it and ask it. The most touching episodes in the Gospels are those in which Christ opened wide the arms of His charity to sinful but repentant creatures, and lifted them out of their iniquity. That same charity and power to ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... I begged to know what he had heard. He was very unwilling to tell me, but it came out at last that Dermot and Harold—being, he feared, in an improperly excited condition—had insisted on going to the den with the keeper, and had irritated the animal by wanton mischief, and he was convinced that this could not have taken ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hangman," shrieked Griffith, still staring at the horizon. "Stay me not; my hands itch for their throats; my heart thirsts for their blood; but I'll not hang for a priest and a wanton." Then he suddenly turned on Leicester, "Let thou go, or—" and he lifted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... insane or a villain," declared "Crusoe". "I do not know who he is, but if I starve to death, he'll be a wanton murderer. My name is Raymond Flood. I am not a college student. I am a high ...
— The Radio Boys in the Thousand Islands • J. W. Duffield
... beginnings of the Emmett plot increased the tension caused by Napoleon's masterful foreign policy; and the result was seen in the King's message to Parliament on March 8th, 1803. In view of the military preparations and of the wanton defiance of the First Consul's recent message to the Corps Legislatif, Ministers asked for the embodiment of the militia and the addition of 10,000 seamen to the navy. After Napoleon's declaration to our ambassador that France was bringing her forces ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... morals from self-love, or a regard to private interest, is an obvious thought, and has not arisen wholly from the wanton sallies and sportive assaults of the sceptics. To mention no others, Polybius, one of the gravest and most judicious, as well as most moral writers of antiquity, has assigned this selfish origin to all our sentiments of virtue. [Footnote: Undutifulness to parents is disapproved ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... be done (remembering all that she had to dread from the wanton exercise of Jack's tongue) was to soothe his ruffled vanity without further delay. There would be no difficulty in discovering him, if he had not gone out. Wherever his Mistress might be at the moment, there he was ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... Knowledge and Experience do not enter. They stay without, together with the dull, dead clay of which they form a part; while the freed brain, released from their narrowing tutelage, steals softly past the ebon gate, to wanton at its own sweet will among the mazy paths that wind through ...
— Dreams - From a volume entitled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 the audacious stranger, and they ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... through the head and instantly killed while reading a newspaper. He was violating no rule whatever, and when shot was from eight to ten feet inside the window through which the bullet came. This was a wholly unprovoked and wanton murder; the cowardly miscreant had fired the shot while he was off duty, and from the north sidewalk of Carey street. The guards (home guards they were) used, in fact, to gun for prisoners' heads from their posts below, pretty much after the fashion ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... is this man altered from the formal stolidity of his usual manner!he grows wanton under adversitySed pereunti mille figurae."He then proceeded aloud"Sir Arthur, we must necessarily speak a ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... to see such an immense and wanton waste of lives and property, not doubting the benevolent feelings of some individuals engaged in that cause. But we cannot for a moment doubt, but that the cause of many of our unconstitutional, unchristian, and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... that assay Give you (she said) of virtue strange and rare: Such was for Arthur made by Morgue the fay, To make him of Genevra's fault aware. The chaste wife's lord thereof may drink; but they Drink not, whose wedded partners wanton are: For, when they would the cordial beverage sup, Into their ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... There is a sect in India, the members of which are so scrupulous regarding the sanctity of life that they carefully brush every step of the path in front of them, lest they should inadvertently step upon any creeping thing. In this, they lift the burden of responsibility from themselves for any wanton injury; but the microscope has shown us that there is a countless world of infinitesimal life all around us, and that it is practically impossible to draw a breath, or drink a mouthful of water, without destroying some living thing. If we accept the teaching of ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... morning at my office. At noon dined, and then I out of doors to my bookseller in Duck Lane, but su moher not at home, and it was pretty here to see a pretty woman pass by with a little wanton look, and je did sequi her round about the street from Duck Lane to Newgate Market, and then elle did turn back, and je did lose her. And so to see my Lord Crew, whom I find up; and did wait on him; but his face sore, but in hopes to do now ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... holy before their god, whoever he may be, and therefore they shudder and grow almost pale at the idea of Christian lips polluting a spring whose waters must descend into their sanctified gullets. We had no wanton desire to wound even their feelings or trample upon their prejudices, but we were out of water, thus early in the day, and were burning up with thirst. It was at this time, and under these circumstances, that I framed an aphorism which has already become ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to sea! the calm is o'er; The wanton water leaps in sport, And rattles down the pebbly shore; The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort, And unseen Mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among. Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: To sea, to sea! ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and, when day declined, were burned to serve for nocturnal lights." At length a feeling of compassion arose among the people for the victims of this wanton ferocity. Prior to this time, while the Christians were confounded with the Jews as one of their sects, they had been more protected than persecuted by the Roman authorities. Now that they were recognized as a distinct body,—the adherents of a new religion not identified with any ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... a wanton and merry scoundrel, taking every license, kissing the wives and talking love-talk to the girls in his wanderings, as he begs for his Church and his order. His hood is stuffed with trinkets to give them; he is worthily known as the best beggar of his house; his eyes alight with wine, he strikes ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... evolution. But the colonists could no longer have things their own way. Liberal laws were repealed, and intolerance and oppression took their place. Heretics were persecuted; the power of the church in civil affairs was increased; and fines and taxes on the industry of the colony were wanton and excessive. The king of England directly ruled Virginia. The people were forced to pay Berkeley a thousand pounds sterling as his salary, and he declared he ought to get three times as much even as that. His true character was ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... disclosed! This gear showeth itself in such beauty, That each man thinketh[402] it saith, Come, buy me! Look where yourself can like to be chooser, Yourself shall make price, though I be loser. Is here[403] nothing for my father Palmer? Have ye not a wanton in a corner, For all your walking to holy places? By Christ, I have heard of as strange cases. Who liveth in love, and love would win, Even at this pack he must begin. Wherein[404] is right many a proper token, Of which by name part shall be spoken: Gloves, pins, combs, glasses unspotted, Pomades, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... powerful cause had not blinded and misled them; this cause was their mythology, which, peopling the universe with graceful phantoms, robbed creation of its solemnity, of its sublime repose. Christianity came—and fauns, satyrs, and wanton nymphs disappeared; the grottos regained their holy silence; the dim woods their mystic reveries; the vast forests their vague and sublime melancholy; the streams overturned their petty urns to drink only from the mountain tops, to pour forth ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the weak wanton Cupid Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold, And like a dew-drop from the lion's mane, Be ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... But when they had gone some distance, Bellew looked back, and then he saw that Anthea walked with her head averted, yet Cassilis walked close beside her, and stooped, now and then, until the black moustache came very near the curl—that curl of wanton witchery that peeped above ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... into his task with a manifest gusto which had been well suppressed in the previous cases. The indictment was very similar to that preferred against Nicholls; but, in addition to all that the latter had been charged with, Talbot rapidly enumerated a long list of wanton cruelties and petty tyrannies which had sprung spontaneously and unprompted as it were from the second mate's own evil nature. At the conclusion of Talbot's address the men, without waiting for Rogers to formally charge them, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... windows were destroyed. The Communion table was taken from the east end of the chancel, and seats erected round it. Crosses were defaced everywhere, and crucifixes destroyed. Puritan profanation and wanton destruction devastated our churches to a degree which has never been equalled since the hordes of heathens and barbaric Danish invaders carried fire and sword into the ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... The wanton cruelties committed upon these people by the commanders and crews of many of the vessels that have been of late years in the habit of resorting to their shores, are testified to, by too many evidences, to ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... 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
... take leave to add the following from Beaumont and Fletcher's "Wife for a Month;" 'tis the conclusion of a description of a sea-fight: "The game of death was never played so nobly; the meagre thief grew wanton in his mischiefs, and his shrunk, hollow eyes smiled on his ruins." There is fancy in these of a lower order from "Bonduca": "Then did I see these valiant men of Britain, like boding owls creep into tods of ivy, and hoot ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... "Oh, wanton malice! deathful sport! Could ye not spare my all? But mark my words, on thy cold heart A ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... "gnawing his inwards." Emilia's conversation with Desdemona in the last act lends some colour to the correctness of Iago's belief. If this belief be well-founded it must greatly modify his character as a purely wanton and mischievous criminal, a supreme villain, and lower correspondingly the character of Othello as an honourable and high-minded man. If it be a morbid suspicion, having no ground in fact, a mental obsession, then Iago becomes abnormal and consequently ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... Solmund's son and Thorgeir Craggeir, rode that day east across Markfleet, and so on east to Selialandsmull. They found there some women. The wives knew them, and said to them, "Ye two are less wanton than the sons of Sigfus yonder, but still ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... days when throne and altar heard The wanton's wish, the bigot's word, And pomp of state and ritual show Scarce hid the loathsome ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... in Lynden's pastoral dell With modest pride a verdant hillock crown'd: Where the bold stream, like dragon from the fell, Came glittering forth, and, gently gliding round The broom-clad skirts of that fair spot of ground, Danced down the vale, in wanton mazes bending; Till finding, where it reached the meadow's bound, Romantic Teviot on his bright course wending. It joined the sounding streams—with his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... entertained her with marvellous "tales of school," rousing her indignation by terrible narratives of tyrannous and cruel fagging, and taking away her breath by tales of reckless daring, amusing impudence, or wanton destructiveness common to boys. Some of these we afterwards confessed to be fables, told—as we politely put it—to "see how much she ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... clerk had provided the town with an alarm, an astonishment. He was most astounded of all. As he rode back to the frame house in the swaying carriage he absolutely could not believe that such hopes, such plans, could be shattered with such wanton, wasteful cruelty. That he should have loved, married, and begotten, and that the new-made mother and the new-born child should be struck dead, nullified, returned to clay—such things were too foolish, too spendthrift, ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... had its parallel in other and less civilized ages may be freely admitted, but until German scientists, philosophers, educators, and even doctors of divinity attempted to justify this wanton outrage, it had been hoped that mankind had made some progress since the times of Wallenstein ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... now, no longer deaf to honour's call, Forth issues Paris from the palace wall. In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray, Swift through the town the warrior bends his way. The wanton courser thus with reins unbound(176) Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground; Pamper'd and proud, he seeks the wonted tides, And laves, in height of blood his shining sides; His head now freed, he tosses to the skies; His mane dishevell'd o'er his shoulders ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the need to deter terrorists and supporters from contemplating a WMD attack and, failing that, to dissuade them from actually conducting an attack. Traditional threats may not work because terrorists show a wanton disregard for the lives of innocents and in some cases for their own lives. We require a range of deterrence strategies that are tailored to the situation and the adversary. We will make clear that terrorists ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... were seen. Through all the different stages that he went, He still appeared both wise and diligent: Firm to his word, and punctual to his trust, Sagacious, frugal, arable, and just. No gainful views his bounded hopes could sway, No wanton thought led his chaste soul astray. In short, his thoughts and actions both declare, Nature designed him her philosopher; That all mankind, by his example taught, Might learn to live, and manage every thought. Oh! could my muse the wondrous subject grace, ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... sensation, and those wakeful Birds Have all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, As if one quick and sudden Gale had swept An hundred airy harps! And she hath watch'd Many a Nightingale perch giddily On blosmy twig still swinging from the breeze, And to that motion tune his wanton song, Like tipsy Joy that reels with ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... be nearly as effectual as the mop. Edmund stretched himself lazily, and in very sleepy accents desired to know what his brother could possibly mean by such wanton cruelty. ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... split open upon the ground. This tree was so large that, in order that it might be handled at all, powder had to be used to blast it in pieces. The tree was knotty, and according to the lumbermen, of little value, and might as well have been left. What excuse is there for the wanton destruction of a noble tree like this one? It must have stood from five thousand to six thousand years. It was a mighty tree at the beginning of the Christian era, and was growing, a strong tree, when our ancestors were the rudest savages ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... turns became the seat of baronial splendour and of civil feuds,—of the best and basest feelings of mankind;—the loyalty and hospitality of cavaliers; the fanatic outrages of Roundheads; and ultimately of wanton desolation! The gate through which Colonel Lilburne and his men entered, was blocked up with a hurdle; and the yard where his forces were marshalled was covered with high flourishing grass; the towers had almost become mere shells, but the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... their domestic or social customs." Even if the Mormons had so construed it, the rebuke of their lack of patriotism would have aroused their resentment, and Bernhisel, in a letter to President Fillmore, characterized it as "a wanton insult." ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... me," he said, striving to cover up what he felt to have been a wanton piece of brutality. "I only mean, you must for the same reason that I must—because circumstances have linked ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... 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 ...
— The Ladies Delight • Anonymous
... flowers round them only breathe: Yet ruined Splendour still is lingering there. And yonder towers the Prince's palace fair: There thou too, Vathek! England's wealthiest son,[bb][50] Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,[bc] Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... sacrificed without remorse! Your brother, too, whose soul, with the most deliberate vindictiveness, I sent before its Maker, without an instant's preparation! A guilty soul it was; for he hounded me down, one would almost think for the sport of it.... God! when I think that, but for him, for his wanton interference—but there, the devils are loose again! I must not think on him. Do I not deserve my fate, if the Bible law be right? 'He who sheds blood, his blood shall be shed.' Never was sentence more just. I have sinned, I have ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... wanton killing of a gull in Utah is an offense in law; but stronger than legal proscription, more powerful than fear of judicial penalties, is the popular sentiment in favor of these white-winged deliverers. Every year come these graceful ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... perhaps altogether announced herself as straining so hard at the cord. It was familiar, it was beautiful to Mrs. Stringham that she had arrears to make up, the chances that had lapsed for her through the wanton ways of forefathers fond of Paris, but not of its higher sides, and fond almost of nothing else; but the vagueness, the openness, the eagerness without point and the interest without pause—all a part of the charm of her oddity as at first presented—had become more striking ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... wanton faun And agile as the Hooluck gibbon, The children "walked" thee on the lawn, Tied with a bow of orange ribbon; And aye as irksomer grew the task Of fending off the Hun garotters In our mind's eye—if you must ask— We ate thee up from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... without doubt, those of the abbess. She charged the blood of Paulina upon the Landgrave's head; denounced the instant vengeance of the emperor for so great an atrocity; and, if that could be evaded, bade him expect certain retribution from Heaven for so wanton and useless an ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... but the very fragments were melodious and reached the Muses, who buried them where the nightingale still sings "Eurydice." So runs the allegory; even drowned by earthly clamors, slain and torn by wanton hands, the song of Poetry continues, the ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... chance; that nothing but unforeseen accident could prevent the boats from making Ascension again in a matter of hours; that as long as the gig was supposed to be lost with all hands, nothing else mattered. So they promised, and that Harris meant to keep his promise I fully believe. That was not a wanton ruffian; but the other would spill blood like water, as I told you at the hall, and as no man now knows better than yourself. He was notorious even in Portuguese Africa on account of his atrocious treatment ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... swivel guns, to that most diabolical engine of all murderers—the Maxim silencer,—to hounding and crusting, to egging and nefarious pluming, to illegal netting and cod-trapping, and last, but emphatically not least, to any and every form of wanton cruelty. The next step may be to provide against ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... something which is agreeable to [their [6]] Temper, though below [their [7]] Understanding. Apicius cannot resist being pleased, if you give him an Account of a delicious Meal; or Clodius, if you describe a Wanton Beauty: Tho' at the same time, if you do not awake those Inclinations in them, no Men are better Judges of what is just and delicate in Conversation. But as I have before observed, it is easier to talk to the Man, than to the ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... view a boat travelling this liquid road, without raising opposite sensations—pleased to think of its great benefit to the community, and grieved to behold wanton punishment. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... who will the ribald line Which tells his lapse from duty, How kissed the maddening lips of wine Or wanton ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... done for you! Ah! the dolt! To trust a wanton! To trust Warcolier! To trust everybody! To ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... that," said Harry. "You get us into a precious hobble through sheer wanton foolery, and then you expect me to ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... longer supported by the Indians, Thomas Bosomworth at last repented of his folly. He wrote to the president and council, apologizing for his wanton conduct. He acknowledged the title of his wife to be groundless, and relinquished all claim to the lands of the Province. Though his offense had been serious, the colonists pardoned him, and thus ended the career of ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... leading his royal captive in triumph to Samarkand. An attempt to facilitate his escape, by digging a mine under the tent, provoked the Mongol Emperor to impose a harsher restraint; and in his perpetual marches, an iron cage on a wagon might be invented, not as a wanton insult, but as a rigorous precaution. But the strength of Bajazet's mind and body fainted under the trial, and his premature death might, without injustice, be ascribed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... 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 find that it ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... soon afterwards parted with her, interdicting her from having ever afterwards any commerce with man. He loved with a most passionate and constant affection Caesonia, who was neither handsome nor young; and was besides the mother of three daughters by another man; but a wanton of unbounded lasciviousness. Her he would frequently exhibit to the soldiers, dressed in a military cloak, with shield and helmet, and riding by his side. To his friends he even showed her naked. After she had a child, he honoured her with the title of wife; in one ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... regarded each other in melancholy amazement. Such an evidence of wanton levity and of unworthiness of motive, in one who was intrusted with the gift of earthly government, pained their simple and upright minds; while old Mark, of still more decided and exaggerated ideas of spiritual perfection, distinctly ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... the old, old, old, very old grey-bearded gentleman called Christmas, who was wont to be a very familiar ghest (sic). Whoever finds him again shall be rewarded with a benediction from the Pope, a hundred oaths from the Cavaliers, forty kisses from the wanton wenches, and be made pursuivant to the next Archbishop.' 'The poor,' he added, 'are sorry for it. They go to every door a-begging, as they were wont to do, 'Good Mistress, somewhat against this good time.' Instead of going to the alehouse to be drunke, they are ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... deposited the infant on his doorstep. His top boots scuttled up and down the street, through yards and barn lots for an hour, but despite the fact that he carried his dark lantern and trailed like an Indian bloodhound, he found no trace of the wanton visitor. In the meantime, Mrs. Crow, assisted by the entire family, had stowed the infant, a six-weeks-old girl, into a warm bed, ministering to the best of her ability to its meagre but vociferous wants. There was no more sleep in the ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... as if the elements were tired of the havoc they had wrought and were minded to be in a good humour. There was not a boat on the Island but had been battered and torn by the rocks. People had to take their heads out of their hands, and stand up from their brooding, or this wanton mischief would cost them their dear lives, for the poor resources of the Island had given out, and the Islanders were in ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... its advance to Smolensk, things were even worse as they left the ruined town behind them and resumed their journey towards Moscow. It seemed that the hatred with which they were regarded by the Russian peasantry was now even more than reciprocated. The destruction they committed was wanton and wholesale; the villages, and even the towns, were burnt down, and the whole country made desolate. It was nothing to them that by so doing they added enormously to the difficulties of their own commissariat; nothing that they were destroying the places where they might otherwise ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... the Prophetical Office (1836-7) I express thus: "Now that our discussions draw to a close, the thought, with which we entered on the subject, is apt to recur, when the excitement of the inquiry has subsided, and weariness has succeeded, that what has been said is but a dream, the wanton exercise, rather than the practical conclusions of the intellect." And I conclude the paragraph by anticipating a line of thought into which I was, in the event, almost obliged to take refuge: "After all," I say, "the Church is ever invisible in its day, and faith ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the banquet hall intent On strictest search his steps he bent. He passed within the door, and found Fair women sleeping on the ground, Where wearied with the song, perchance, The merry game, the wanton dance, Each girl with wine and sleep oppressed Had sunk her drooping head to rest. That spacious hall from side to side With noblest fare was well supplied, There quarters of the boar, and here Roast ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... game in profusion. They could kill as many buffaloes as they pleased, and, occasionally, were wanton in their havoc; especially among scattered herds, that came swimming near the boat. On one occasion, an old buffalo bull approached so near that the half-breeds must fain try to noose him as they would a wild horse. The noose was successfully thrown around his head, and ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... of duty err, (A pattern of fidelity by day; By night a murderer, lurking for his prey); And round the pastures or the fold will creep, And, coward-like, attack the peaceful sheep: Alone the wanton mischief he pursues, Alone in reeking blood his jaws imbrues; Chasing amain his fright'ned victims round, Till death in wild confusion strews the ground; Then wearied out, to kennel sneaks away, And licks his guilty paws ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... on this delicious intercourse for months before it was discovered, but use begets want of caution, and my father at last discovered it. Poor Henry thought himself happily excused by allowing my wanton parent to take possession of his bottom while fucking me. My warm embraces enabling him to support the great and curious pain and pleasure attending a first penetration of that delicious narrow aperture, dedicated to ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... briefly over the succeeding events of the story of Florinda, about which so much has been said and sung by chronicler and bard: for the sober page of history should be carefully chastened from all scenes that might inflame a wanton imagination; leaving them to poems and romances, and such-like highly seasoned works of fantasy ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... understood that by connecting the censorship of the laws with the private interests of members of the community, and by intimately uniting the prosecution of the law with the prosecution of an individual, legislation is protected from wanton assailants, and from the daily aggressions of party spirit. The errors of the legislator are exposed whenever their evil consequences are most felt, and it is always a positive and appreciable fact which serves as ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... we has, chile—but you needn't look so 'stonish and 'mazed. You can't help of it, chile. An' if de British do come dar and burn de house and heave we-dem into de fire jes' out of wanton, it'll only be two poor, ole, unvaluable niggers burned up. Ole marse know dat well enough—dat's de ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... to act with effect in repressing tumults. There is also a natural feeling, on the part of all members of Government, for the general maintenance of authority; and it seemed not unlikely, that what to the relatives of the sufferers appeared a wanton and unprovoked massacre, should be otherwise viewed in the cabinet of St. James's. It might be there supposed, that upon the whole matter, Captain Porteous was in the exercise of a trust delegated to him by the lawful civil authority; ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... point the finger of admiration. All nationalities concerned in building up this country, when united by a common danger, bore in it an honorable part, as they fought side by side in defence of their homes and those that were dear to them, from the wanton aggression of ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... voice, 'Ye mun loe us, young leddy, to come to sic a place an' sing o' Him wha sa loed the warld that He sent His only begotten Son ta it, for it's only great loe that casts out fear, and this is a fearsome spot.' Since then I haven't hated anything, except wanton cruelty, and I know love rules when it is fearless, but that is very seldom. We were afraid to say, I love you, to anything more sensitive than a stray kitten, though the world has hungered and thirsted after the love we have feared to give even to our own children. And yet just the love a man ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... economy. Adepts as we were, in the art of "horse-pressing," there was this fact nevertheless to be said in favor of the system which we adopted: while making very free with the horse-flesh of the country into which we would raid, there was never any wanton waste of the article. We did not kill our tired stock, as did the Federal commanders on their "raids," when we got fresh ones. The men of our command were not permitted to impress horses in a friendly country. It is true that horses were sometimes stolen from ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... conscience in things, that is never, never broken. We had wound through tangled lanes and met handsome sallow country-folk lounging at leisure, as became the Sunday, and ever so pleasantly and garishly clothed, if not quite consistently costumed, as just on purpose to feed our wanton optimism; and then we had addressed ourselves with a soft superficiality to the open, the exquisite little Ostian reliquary, an exhibition of stony vaguenesses half straightened out. The ruins of the ancient port of Rome, the still recoverable identity of streets and habitations and other forms ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... thoughts, joys, longings, that before became High unexperienc'd blood, and maids' sharp plights, Must now grow staid, and censure the delights, That, being enjoy'd, ask judgment; now we praise, As having parted: evenings crown the days. And now, ye wanton Loves, and young Desires, Pied Vanity, the mint of strange attires, Ye lisping Flatteries, and obsequious Glances, Relentful Musics, and attractive Dances, And you detested Charms constraining love! Shun love's stoln sports by that these lovers prove. ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... defenders; who were found bleeding to death, on boarding the different captured vessels, in prodigious numbers, and afforded a shocking spectacle of horror to our brave but humane seamen. To preserve his fellow creatures from wanton destruction, the hero's flag of truce unfurled; a pause was thus obtained; reason had time to operate; and the basis was immediately laid for a renewal of that amity which had happily prevailed, for a long series of years, between the two nations, ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... described. General Sherman had heard of the assassination when the capitulation was made, and could not have been ignorant of the feeling it had aroused. On the face of the proceeding his action seemed a wanton betrayal of the country to its enemies; but when this betrayal followed so swiftly the frightful tragedy which was then believed to have been instigated by the Confederate authorities, the patience of the people became ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... opposed this part of the ministerial scheme on the ground that it was inconsistent with the main principles of the bill, as it narrowed the sphere within which aristocratic influence was to act, thus adding to its energy; and that it was a wanton and unnecessary interference with the ancient institutions of the country. Some members who had voted for this clause in the preceding session now declared themselves opposed to it in consequence of the extension of the comity franchise to tenants-at-will; while on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sultry, and the heat was extreme throughout the ship. The unusual number of hours during which we had been crowded together between decks; the foul atmosphere and sickening heat; the additional excitement and restlessness caused by the unwonted wanton attack which had been made; above all, the want of water, not a drop of which could be obtained during the whole night, to cool our parched lips; the imprecations of those who were half distracted with their burning thirst; the shrieks and wails of the wounded; the struggles and groans ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... the Hsia seasons, drive in the chariot of Yin, wear the head-dress of Chou, take for music the Shao and its dance. Banish the strains of Cheng and flee men that are glib; for the strains of Cheng are wanton and ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... had played me a wanton trick. Cynthia trusted me. If I were weak, I should not be the only one to suffer. And something told me that I should be weak. How could I hope to be strong, tortured by the thousand memories which the sight of her would bring ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... eyes; And fifty merry Dakota maidens, The fairest-molded of womankind Are gathered in groups on the level ice. They look on the robe and its beauty gladdens And maddens their hearts for the splendid prize. Lo the rounded ankles and raven hair That floats at will on the wanton wind, And the round, brown arms to the breezes bare, And breasts like the mounds where the waters meet,[4] And feet as fleet as the red deer's feet, And faces that glow like the full, round moon When she laughs in ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... interests. An army has been assembled on the Sutlej to watch the progress of events; but the Sikhs have hitherto cautiously abstained from giving any pretext for our interference; and, as long as their disorders are confined within their own frontier, such an act would bear the aspect of wanton aggression. But though the appropriation of the Punjab, in whatever form effected, cannot be long delayed, "the pear" (to use a Napoleonic phrase) "is not yet ripe;" and as we intend to return to the subject at no distant period, we shall dismiss it for the present; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... schoolboys who followed the equine procession, shrieking and yelling with glee and exciting the horses by their wanton screams, was a handsome lad of fourteen, named Erik Carstens. He had fixed his eyes admiringly on a coal-black, four-year-old mare, a mere colt, which brought up the rear of the procession. How exquisitely she was fashioned! How she danced over the ground ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... is ye tailyor-man Yet is he often tried, Lest he, from fullness of ye dimes, Wax wanton ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... to be passive, nor dare they resist or defend themselves if attacked, without the smallest provocation, by a white person, as the law directs the negroe's arm to be cut off who raises it against a white person, should it be only in defence against wanton barbarity and outrage. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... Silas and Jonathan, 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 of them. He was accompanied in that excursion by Isaac ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... Palatius. There Evander, who, belonging to the above tribe of the Arcadians, had for many years before occupied these districts, is said to have appointed the observance of a solemn festival, introduced from Arcadia, in which naked youths ran about doing honour in wanton sport to Pan Lycaeus, who was afterward called Inuus by the Romans. When they were engaged in this festival, as its periodical solemnization was well known, a band of robbers, enraged at the loss of some booty, ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... torn to pieces. There had been a marten in this trap, but nothing remained of him except a few hairs that clung to the bark of the fall-log. The bait was gone, the bait house was broken apart, and the pieces strewn about in the most savage and wanton manner. The tracks were only a few hours old, and Connie was for following them and killing the marauder with the rifle. But 'Merican Joe shook his head: "No, we ain' kin fin' him. He climb de tree and den git in nodder tree an' ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... a commodore in the Continental Navy, and one of the founders of the State of Ohio, led the expedition. The royal authorities were greatly exasperated on hearing of the daring achievement, and Joseph Wanton, Governor of Rhode Island, afterward deposed from office for his loyalty to King George, issued a proclamation ordering diligent search for the perpetrators of the act. The British government offered a reward of $5000 for the leader, but although the people ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... Europe. They have assured all these distant peoples that their faith has built up a shining civilisation in Europe, and now there flash and quiver through the nerves of the world the daily messages of horror, of fierce hatred, of appalling carnage, of the wanton destruction by Christians of Christian temples. The Gospel has, somehow, broken down ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... reached the level of straight and simple relations with her. I asked myself despairingly, "What am I to do?" In foolish dreams I imagined her now as my mistress and now as my wife, but rejected both ideas with disgust. To make her a wanton woman would be dreadful. It would be murder. To turn her into a fine lady, the wife of Dmitri Andreich Olenin, like a Cossack woman here who is married to one of our officers, would be still worse. Now could I turn Cossack like Lukashka, and steal horses, get ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy |
