"Whim" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were peculiar, and somewhat disconcerting. He also did not hesitate to speak aloud when he chose, nor to rise from his seat and move to any part of the room as the whim seized him. In time, of course, all this was changed; but it was several days before the boy learned so to conduct himself that he did not shatter to atoms the peace and propriety ...
— Just David • Eleanor H. Porter
... said the queen; 'my son seems to have eaten some of her pastry. It is the whim of a sick man, no doubt; but send at once and ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... so later the painting was delivered by a porter from the auction room. But Lanyard was in his bath at the time and postponed examining his doubtful prize till he had dressed for dinner. For, though it was his whim to dine in his rooms alone, and though he had no fixed plans for the evening, Lanyard was too thoroughly cosmopolitan not to do in Cockaigne ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... basely in the lurch on the day of an important match, a casual observer might have imagined that Norris did not really care very much whether his House won the cup or not. But this was not the case. In reality the success of Jephson's was a very important matter to him. A sudden whim had induced him to accept his uncle's invitation, but now that that acceptance had had such disastrous results, he felt inclined to hire a sturdy menial by the hour to kick him till he felt better. To a person in such a frame of mind there are three methods of consolation. He can commit suicide, ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... idle whim!" Broke forth from him Whom nought could warm to gallantries: "Cede all these buds and birds, the zephyr's call, And scents, and hues, and things that falter all, And choose as best the close and ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... hard. But I fastened my eye on 26. I have a fine eye for direction and distance. One, two, three, four blocks from the public square. That's the block with the solitary oak-tree in it, if I'm right. Yes? Well, I must have lots in that very block. When I take a whim of that kind, heaven and earth can't turn me, Mr. Plausaby. So you'd just as well ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... attempted a portrait of Wordsworth, among others. 'At his desire', says Wordsworth, 'I sat to him, but as he did not satisfy himself or my friends, the unfinished work was destroyed.' He was more successful with Charles Lamb, whom he painted (for a whim) in the dress of a Venetian Senator. As a friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth he had inevitably made acquaintance with the Lambs. He first met Lamb at one of the Godwins' strange evening parties and the two became ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... scoller, but aw know A long chawk moor ner him; It couldn't be his knowledge box 'At made thi change thi whim. ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... in solitary guise: Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, More restless than the swallow in the skies: Though here awhile he learned to moralise, For Meditation fixed at times on him, And conscious Reason whispered to despise His early youth misspent in maddest whim; But as he gazed on Truth, his ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... business of which my mind was become very full. Chatellerault had not dealt fairly with me. Often, since I had left Paris, had I marvelled that he came to be so rash as to risk his fortune upon a matter that turned upon a woman's whim. That I possessed undeniable advantages of person, of birth, and of wealth, Chatellerault could not have disregarded. Yet these, and the possibility that they might suffice to engage this lady's affections, he appeared to have set at naught when he plunged into that ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... or be officious to loosen his bonds, keeping a smiling mien as of one whose day's work is done; in short, in what subtle fashion you may, do you and your helpers add to that assurance that I myself shall give him. Do your part well and there will be reward, for I have at heart a whim that I would gratify.' So we went into ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the end, and this requires still more work. These erasers are round or flat or six-sided or wedge-shaped. They are let into the pencil itself, or into a nickel tip, or drawn over the end like a cap, so that any one's special whim may be gratified. Indeed, however hard to please any one may be, he ought to be able to find a pencil to suit his taste, for a single factory in the United States makes more than six hundred kinds of pencils, and makes so many of them that if they were laid end to end they would ...
— Makers of Many Things • Eva March Tappan
... before," said Adelaide quietly. "Why should you destroy the poor fellow's happiness, as well as Leam's chances, for a mere passing whim? You surely are not going to repeat with the daughter the father's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... whim, when the Baron was out of hearing, the Bailie used sometimes gently to rally Mr. Rubrick, upbraiding him with the nicety of his scruples. Indeed, it must be owned, that he himself, though at heart a keen partisan of the exiled family, had ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... "A lady's whim," her maid said to herself, when she noticed the ardent looks which Miss Zoe gave her manservant, "which will soon pass away." But that experienced female was mistaken ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of these roads. Somebody is always driving recklessly." Lorelei smiled at memory of the miles they had covered so swiftly; but she saw that he was serious and in a sour temper. "One risks his life on the whim of some drunken idiot the moment he enters a motor-car. Now for a telephone." A terse question to his man ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... or to raise a hand in his own defence; scourged on his bare back, with a cowhide, until the blood flows in streams from his quivering flesh? And for what? Often for the most trifling fault; and, as sometimes occurs, because a mere whim or caprice of his brutal overseer demands it. Pale with passion, his eyes flashing and his stalwart frame trembling with rage, like some volcano, just ready to belch forth its fiery contents, and, in all its might and fury, spread death and destruction all around, ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... wealth of contrite love upon her daughter and husband, spending on Alma and loading her with gifts of jewelry and finery to somehow express her grateful adoration of her; paying her husband the secret penance of twofold fidelity to his well-being and every whim, Alma, returning from a trip, taken reluctantly, and at her mother's bidding, down to the basement trunk room, found her gone, a modish black-lace hat and the sable ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to Odo's lips. At the same instant the Columbine turned about and swept him a deep curtsey, to the delight of the audience, who had no notion of what was going forward, but were in the humour to clap any whim of their favourite's; then she turned and darted off the stage, and the curtain fell on a ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... their showrooms like a beautiful butterfly hovering over a flower-bed—her eye caught by every novelty. She never asked the price of anything: and Lady Kirkbank informed them, in confidence, that she was a great heiress, with a millionaire grandmother who indulged her every whim. Other high born young ladies, shopping upon fixed allowances, and sorely perplexed to make both ends meet, looked with eyes ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... casks for beer . . . be iron bound, at least for the first [end] tyre" [hoop]. Cushman states that they had ample supplies of beer offered them both in Kent and Amsterdam. The planters' supply seems to have failed, however, soon after the company landed, and they were obliged to rely upon the whim of the Captain of the MAY-FLOWER for their needs, the ship's supply being apparently separate from that of the planters, and lasting longer. Winthrop's supply seems to have been large ("42 tons"—probably tuns intended). It was evidently a stipulation of the charter-party that the ship should, in ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... In a way his mind was more at rest. He was nearer to being reconciled to the fifteen hundred a year now that he knew it was not to come from the funds of the Fair Harbor. Judge Knowles was reputed to be rich. If he chose to pay a salary to gratify a whim—why, let him. He, Kendrick, would do his best to earn that salary. But, nevertheless, he did not intend to let Elizabeth Berry remain under any misapprehension as to where the salary was coming from. He would tell her the next time they ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... is as I have said: the thing which will give you the MOST pleasure, the most satisfaction, in any moment or FRACTION of a moment, is the thing you will always do. You must content the Master's LATEST whim, whatever it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the trough. It was Gourlay's own cob, which he used for driving round the countryside. It was a black—Gourlay "made a point" of driving with a black. "The brown for sturdiness, the black for speed," he would say, making a maxim of his whim to give it the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... tavern was an old, fat, country major, and another old fellow, laughing and playing off jokes on each other,—one tying a ribbon upon the other's hat. One had been a trumpeter to the major's troop. Walking about town, we knocked, for a whim, at the door of a dark old house, and inquired if Miss Hannah Lord lived there. A woman of about thirty came to the door, with rather a confused smile, and a disorder about the bosom of her dress, as if she had been disturbed while ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there had been a dance at Piping Tree, and because she had danced twice with Gay (who had ridden over in obedience to a whim), Abel had parted from her in anger. For the first time she had felt the white heat of his jealousy, and it had aroused rebellion, not acquiescence, in her heart. Jonathan Gay was nothing to her (though he called her his cousin)—he ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... sky-cliff opposite, and the sea stretched for visible miles and miles along the shore on either hand, its wide blue mantle fringed with lovely white wherever it met the land, and scalloped into all fantastic curves, according to the whim of the nether fires which had formed its bed; and the rush of the waves, as they bore the rising tide up on the shore, was the one music fit for the whole. Ear and eye, touch and smell, were alike invaded with blessedness. I ought to have kept ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... enough about you and your duty, as you call it. I know your particularity about a fancy of your own. I know well enough how obstinate you are about it, and how selfish, that you would sacrifice me to your whim about your duty, and your husband, and all that set of notions. And I know more. I know what it is to have a husband, and that you ought to be thankful that yours was gone before he could play the tyrant over you. You pretend to speak with authority because this ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... of being a land-owner for the first time, or perhaps it was the abject wretchedness of the only hotel in town that inspired the whim which seized me during my solitary dinner. I had spent one night here, and did not welcome the prospect of a second. A return to New York was not practicable, because I had arranged to meet several contractors and an architect at the farm, next morning, to discuss ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... a perfect despot and tyrant, the lives of all his subjects, from the highest to the lowest, being in his power. When the whim seized him, he did not hesitate to kill as ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... Princess mortally; for her Highness in some whim had insulted him with his origin, caused pork to be removed from before him at table, or injured him in some such silly way; and he had a violent animosity to the old Baron de Magny, both in his capacity of Protestant, and because the ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... deliberate, narrative manner. I want live things in their pride to remain. I will not kill one grasshopper vain Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door. I let him out, give him one chance more. Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim, Grasshopper lyrics ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... fellowship between the writers and the painters and other artists, as was shown in the devoted affection of Maclise and others to Dickens. There is more of class apart nowadays. Artists and writers are not thus united. The work has gone through many editions; but, after some years the whim seized him to turn it into an official literary history of the period, and he issued it as a "Life and Times," with an abundance of notes and references. All the pleasant air of story telling, the "Life and Adventures," so suited ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... Scriptores Optici, London, 1823, 4to, edited for the veteran of ninety-two by Mr. Babbage[469] at twenty-nine. This excellent volume contains James Gregory, Des Cartes, Halley, Barrow, and the optical writings of Huyghens, the Principia of the undulatory theory. It also contains, by the sort of whim in which such men as Maseres, myself, and some others are apt to indulge, a reprint of "The great new Art of weighing Vanity,"[470] by M. Patrick Mathers, Arch-Bedel to the University of St. Andrews, Glasgow, 1672. Professor ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... from the couch, and walked to the organ. Assisted from behind by Ham, who foreknew his master's every whim, he proceeded to render with infinite feeling an air from the Lakme of Delibes; long he sat, dreamily uttering the melody, his head sunken on his breast. When at last he rose, his great expanse of brow was clear, and a smile all but solemn in its serenity was on ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... gesture, she flung his hand from her. "Oh, it is so cruel! Can't you see? Can't you understand? I left Russia to make a new life; I made myself a man, not for a whim, but as a symbol. Sex is only an accident, but the world has made man the independent creature—and I desired independence. Sex is only an accident. Mentally, I am as good a man ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... an advance upon the view that transformed natural occurrences into miraculous events. Miracles, according to the Bible, most clearly exemplify God's omnipotence; for omnipotence in the popular mind consists in nothing so much as in the ability to satisfy any purpose or whim no matter how transitory it is, or how incompatible with what has been antecedently desired or done. Miracles may be extraordinary occurrences with reference to the order of Nature, but they are, with reference to God, commonplace exhibitions of His Almighty power. For Spinoza, however, miracles, ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... are free To be good or bad, Sane or mad, Merry or grim As the mood may be,— Free as the whim Of a spook on a spree,— Free to be oddities, Not mere commodities, Stupid and salable, Wholly available, Ranged upon shelves; Each with his puny form In the same uniform, Cramped and disabled; We are not labelled, ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... had cut him deeply, hurt his amour propre and left him scowling in Arcadian resentment. Would the lesson last? Or must she seek further means to convince him of her indifference? Why had she provoked him? A whim—the dormant devil in her—to whom her better self must now pay in ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... confoundedly at his ease in Madame de Flahaut's society. High ho! we two are not the only favored ones. She is a thorough-paced flirt and plays off Curt against Wycombe—he is Lansdowne's son and her latest admirer—or the Bishop against myself, as it suits her whim. I would warn you to beware of women as the authors of all mischief and suffering, did I not think it too late," he said, looking keenly at the young man, who blushed deeply. "Come to London with me, Ned," he went on, impulsively, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... (why not?) the whim would come That howso Time should garble Those deeds of yours when you were dumb, At least you'd live—in Marble; You smiled to think that after days, At least, in Bust or Statue, (We all have sick-bed dreams!) would gaze, Not quite ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... I would do anything on earth for your love. Why, you make any one think that loving is a thing that can be done and undone, and put on and put off at a mere whim." ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy
... upon circumstances," said Vivian; "the whim of the moment is my only principle of action, and therefore I may be off to-night, or ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... most timid ruler does not hesitate to dictate a law that produces misery and lingering death for thousands and thousands of prosperous and industrious subjects, happy perchance, merely to satisfy a caprice, a whim, his pride, and yet you shudder because in one night are to be ended forever the mental tortures of many helots, because a vitiated and paralytic people has to die to give place to another, young, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... perfectly willing to afford Monsieur Chauvenet all imaginable entertainment. We are bound to have many meetings. I am afraid he reached this charming valley before me; but—as a rule—I prefer to be a little ahead of him; it's a whim—the merest ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... punished. Consequently, the number of the evildoers (and it is for them that he acts thus) increases so greatly that the scandal arising from it is pitiful. Malefactors also are more numerous because, when the whim takes him to forsake the other methods, the governor orders the warden of the prison to let the prisoners go, even when they are imprisoned for serious crimes; or he does this secretly, so that no one should know it, and under pretext that they are needed for war or your Majesty's service. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... epic greatness are stationed around me, and serve my Spirit the office which is equivalent to a King's body-guard.... I live more out of England than in it. The Mountains of Tartary are a favorite lounge, if I happen to miss the Alleghany ridge, or have no whim for Savoy. ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... always to some extent dependent upon her whim, as is the case with many other women. Something big came into her throat and an uprising to her eyes—and she thought that she would allow the imminent tears to flow if they wished. They did flow and ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... is led into different countries (whose peculiarities are described), and falls into the society of wits, sharpers, courtiers, and harlots. Occasionally lavish, he is essentially mean; with a dash of humor, he is contemptibly revengeful; and, though generous minded when the whim jumps with his wishes, he is thoroughly selfish. His treatment of Strap is revolting to a generous mind. Strap lends him money in his necessity, but the heartless Roderick wastes the loan, treats Strap as a mere servant, fleeces him at ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... sunny day: That rests with Jove: but what is gone, He will not, cannot turn to nought; Nor cancel, as a thing undone, What once the flying hour has brought." Fortune, who loves her cruel game, Still bent upon some heartless whim, Shifts her caresses, fickle dame, Now kind to me, and now to him: She stays; 'tis well: but let her shake Those wings, her presents I resign, Cloak me in native worth, and take Chaste Poverty undower'd for mine. Though storms around my vessel rave, I will not fall to craven prayers, ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... have him. But he says he does not want again to attach himself to any person, place, or cause, because the time would come when he should have to break away, and then he should have to experience death again. So he intends to move about whenever and wherever the whim suits. But I am sure this life will not satisfy Terry for long, for there is really very much ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... fro circumstances," replied the little girl. "Mother has often said she conna weel spare Alizon. An mayhap Mistress Nutter may knoa, that she con be very obstinate when she tays a whim into ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... reason, Heyst had remained where another would have been glad to be off. The excellent Davidson had discovered the fact without discovering the reason, and took a humane interest in Heyst's strange existence, while at the same time his native delicacy kept him from intruding on the other's whim of solitude. He could not possibly guess that Heyst, alone on the island, felt neither more nor less lonely than in any other place, desert or populous. Davidson's concern was, if one may express it so, the danger ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the Major, 'a smoke-dried, sun-burnt, used-up, invalided old dog of a Major, Sir, was not afraid of being condemned for his whim by a man like Mr Dombey. I have the honour of addressing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... can be more fascinating than that magic city of Az-Zahra, the wonder of its age, of which now not a stone remains? It was made to satisfy the whim of a concubine by a Sultan whose flamboyant passion moved him to displace mountains for the sake of his beloved; and the memory thereof is lost so completely that even its situation till lately was uncertain. Az-Zahra the Fairest said ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... night-wear. My pyjamas are to be of tints conducive to refreshing rest, namely and severally white, lemon, light pink, and pale green—an idea which I candidly confess was inspired by the spectacle of a Neapolitan ice. If you think that this is merely an idle whim, just imagine endeavouring to sleep in pyjamas patterned like an Axminster carpet or a Scotch tartan. No wonder Macbeth "murdered sleep" if he was arrayed in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... finished by a cover of thin leather, cut in the form of a three-leaved clover and neatly sewed on with a waxed thread. The bat is like that used in baseball but lighter and shorter. The corners are usually three in number, with a home- base, making four, but this varies according to the whim of the players or the locality where the game is played. Ordinarily with three corners the distances are about the same as between the bases in baseball. In place of home-base there is a rectangle marked on the ground where ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... towards the King, who had so decidedly broken his covenant with his people, and moreover had so abominably treated the Fellows of Magdalen College; and her pity for Anne as a sufferer for her uncle's whim quite angered her friend into hot defence of him ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... tears your heart to beguile, But never you mind—he's laughing all the while; For little he cares, so he has his own whim, And weeping or laughing are all one to him. His eye is as keen as the lightning's flash, His tongue like the red bolt quick and rash; And so savage is he, that his own dear mother Is scarce more safe in his hands ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... support, then fell to his knees. The hot drops turned to red globules in the snow as he kept crawling, gasping, "Oh, God! Won't somebody come to me?" The dog walked beside him as he dragged himself along, perplexed and wondering at this whim of his master's. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... "Is that your final decision, Hilda?" he said, and there was a fine withering sort of sarcasm in his voice. "Do you mean seriously to desert the husband you married not three months ago for the sake of a child's whim? Is that the way you keep ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... brows together, and for a moment lined the serene beauty of his forehead. He gazed at her with a steady, puzzled look, and at last a faint, half-quizzical smile relaxed his lips. What could this strange idea, this whim be, so unlike all Eastern maiden's usual fancies? He had not yet solved the riddle, nor found the clue! he would do so, but in the meantime she must be left her freedom. In all noble natures power brings with it a terrible responsibility, and the ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... were often made to represent living things; the tendency to convert a globular vase or jug into a huge head or a fat figure, has been common to all people in all ages. The highly civilised Greeks indulged the whim, and our own potters continue it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, vessels for liquids were often constructed of bronze, taking the form of lions, or mounted knights on horseback, of which specimens may be seen in our British Museum. The manufacturers of earthenware imitated ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... before he entered, speaking more softly to the eunuch for fear of being heard by the princess. "To convince you," said he; "there is neither presumption, nor whim, nor youthful conceit in my undertaking, I leave it to your choice whether I shall cure the princess in her presence, or where we are, without going ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... manner, though civil, had reserve and sullenness, and there was in his deportment a decent propriety, that repulsed, or rather prevented, enquiry—he usually answered that he 'knew nothing of the woman who followed him;' 'that he dared to say it was from some whim;' 'that she was welcome to do so if she pleased;' 'she had the same right of highway as any other ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... enforce the Rubrics, and then the whole controversy would be at an end.... I knew there was something else, yes! He said we need not fast! But Cambridge men are always peculiar, they always have some whim or other; he ought to have been at Oxford, and we should have made a man of him. He has many good points, but he runs theories, and rides hobbies, and ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... and curt. She ordered him to fetch and carry. Something in his slow drawl—some hint of hidden amusement in his manner—struck a spark of resentment from her quick eye. But toward Jim she was all kindness. No trouble was too much to take for his comfort. If he had a whim it must be gratified. Prince was merely a ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... it is difficult to explain," said Alfred, "besides, the situation had its charm. No, I am not a robber, and I don't believe you thought so. I have only thwarted a young lady's whim, which I am aware is a great crime. I ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... thought Helen, after they went away; "if another exists, different from the first——well—I see no reason why a whim should wreck my happiness." Then, tempted and scheming, she sat motionless for hours. Alas! for the soul which of its own free will, unmoors itself from the Rock of Ages, to drift away on dark and uncertain seas; who, lured away by ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... up all poor Tiny's soup, she began to rock herself to and fro in his little chair: she had often been punished for this naughty trick, but without effect. While she was indulging this silly whim, out came the rush-bottom of the chair, and she and the soup jar rolled on the floor. But she did not mind this at all, thinking it was fine fun. She now thought she would go up stairs, and see all that was to be seen: and there we will leave her for ...
— A Apple Pie and Other Nursery Tales • Unknown
... reminiscences of the Christminster Colleges. Traceried windows, and cloisters, you see. It was a whim of his to do ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... all my own, my sweet wife. Go and do whatever you like. Who can forbid your indulgence in any whim? You have all my heart yet, I believe; and because you bear with me, who am in truth a drag upon you, I owe you thanks. Yes, go alone and shine. As for me, I will stick to my doom. At that kind of meeting people would shun me. My hook and gloves are like the St. Lazarus rattle ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... around the circle of glowing faces at the table "you are bound together with good cheer and in comfortable circumstances; and even as you, who are here from east and west, from the north and the south, by each one yielding a little of his individual whim or inclination, can thus sit together prosperously and in peace at one board, so can our glorious family of friendly States, on this and every other day, join hands, and like happy children in the fields, lead ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... Tilloughby, wondering at this strange whim, but restraining his curiosity like a thoroughbred. "Huh-huh-huh-Henry shall be back here for you in a jiffy," and he drove off in a ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... his innovations, which were rigorously carried out. Menshikof, once a pastry-cook's boy, aided the Tsar to crush any discontent that might break out, and himself shaved many wrathful nobles who were afraid to resist. It was Peter's whim to give such lavish presents to this minister that he could live in splendid luxury and entertain the Tsar's own guests. Peter himself preferred simplicity, and despised the magnificence of fine palaces. ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... my hand in silence. They were both distressed, these good soldiers, under the impression that they had led me into danger. As a matter of fact it was I who owed them an apology, since they had enough risks in the way of business without taking others in order to gratify the whim of a joy-rider. Barbariche and Clericetti, this record will convey to you ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my darling!" he said. "This is like you. I took this up as a whim as well as a stubborn belief; but somehow that poor little ignorant fellow, with his rough ways, seems to be rousing warmer feelings towards him, and, please God, we'll make a man of him of whom ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... in their whim of seeing in every original writer a copy of some predecessor, have declared that Hawthorne is derived from Tieck, and Poe from Hoffmann, just as Dickens modelled himself on Smollett and Thackeray followed in the footsteps of Fielding. In all four cases the pupil surpassed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... morning they discovered that their windows looked out on the grand-ducal museum, with a gardened space before and below its classicistic bulk, where, in a whim of the weather, the gay flowers were full of sun. In a pleasant illusion of taking it unawares, March strolled up through the town; but Weimar was as much awake at that hour as at any of the twenty-four, and the tranquillity of its streets, where he encountered a few passers several blocks ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... whim of my husband's. He has been away for over a week, and the child imagines that he is still in London, that he will return at any instant and spoil her, after ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... had openly proposed to him that they should spend a few weeks in Paris for the gratification of any praiseworthy intention of her own, or of any harmless whim, he would have unhesitatingly refused, and opposed any number of objections to the proposition; but she had introduced the subject in its most favorable light, and was sure of ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... vast ruins of Hadrian's Villa, I tried to picture the villa as it was when its first owner walked among the buildings which his whim had created. The moment Hadrian himself appeared upon the scene, antiquity seemed an illusion. How ultra-modern he was, this man whom his contemporaries called "a searcher out of strange things"! ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... whim or other led me, on remarking that the red had come up consecutively for seven times, to attach myself to that colour. Probably this was mostly due to self-conceit, for I wanted to astonish the bystanders with the riskiness of my play. Also, I remember that—oh, strange sensation!—I suddenly, ...
— The Gambler • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... find how happily he could spend his days with Mary. He was carried into the garden as soon as he got up, and remained there most of the day. Mary, as ever, was untiring in her devotion, thoughtful, anxious to obey his smallest whim.... He saw very soon the thoughts which were springing up again in the minds of his father and mother, intercepting the little significant glances which passed between them when Mary went away on some errand and he told her not to be ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... sung by a Norfolk man, always seems to me a great curiosity, as the last line is lengthened out and twisted about in a most grotesque manner, apparently to suit the whim or fancy of the singer, for no two of them seem to conjure vocally with it in the same way. Everyone present is supposed to join in the last line as a kind of chorus, and not only join in, but ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... will understand me when I say I was glad to hear this. Hitherto the girl's whim and the murder appeared to me two events connected only by the accident of occurrence on the same day. Now there was ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... shrewd, substantial man, 'who was fond of soothing the acerbities of the feminine mind by a jocose compliment.' Where but in George Eliot would you get a tea-party described with such charming acceptance of whim? ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Sclater had a talk with him concerning his whim of waiting at table, telling him he must not do so again; it was not the custom for gentlemen to do the things that servants were paid to do; it was not fair to the servants, and so on—happening to end with an utterance of mild wonder ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... low, as he handed the case to the little man, "take your violin; it was a whim with me, a passion with you. And as for the money, why, keep that too; it was worth a hundred dollars to have possessed such an instrument ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... only my whim," he said; and, after a moment's hesitation: "It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don't you ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... curiosity,—but, which is the most extraordinary, he is not quite sure that he had any motive for it at all, which his memory can trace. The whole of this is a period of a year and a half; and here is a man who keeps his account upon principles of whim and vagary. One would imagine he was guessing at some motive of a stranger. Why he came to take bonds for money not due to him, and why he enters some and not others,—he knows nothing of these things: he begs them not to ask about it, because it will be of no ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... that three hundred a week for the 'Posie Girl' goes, of course, but this play is just a Hawtry whim that I have got to let her get out of her system. One hundred a week is my limit, and you ought to do it for seventy-five. You can sit in your chair all the time for ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... up your name, and there you are—an independent gentleman! By Jove! this isn't such a dull world. John Raikes! thou livest in times. I feel warm in the sun of your prosperity, Harrington. Now listen to me. Propound thou no inquiries anywhere about the old fellow who gave the supper. Humour his whim—he won't have it. All Fallow field is paid to keep him secret; I know it for a fact. I plied my rustic friends every night. "Eat you yer victuals, and drink yer beer, and none o' yer pryin's and peerin's among we!" That's my rebuff from Farmer Broadmead. And that old boy knows ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with sharp words, for this was a scheme after his own heart. "What, Thor!" he said. "Would you lose your hammer and keep Asgard in danger for so small a whim. Look, now: if you go not, Thrym with his giants will come in a mighty army and drive us from Asgard; then he will indeed make Freia his bride, and, moreover, he will have you for his slave under the power of his hammer. How like you this picture, brother of ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... new-stablished would stand, and be No longer vext of this infirmity. And so that night, ere lying down to sleep, There came on him, half making him to weep And half to laugh that such a thing should be, A mad conceit and antic fantasy (And yet more sad than merry was the whim) To crave this boon of Sleep, beseeching him To send the dream of dreams most coveted. And ere he lay him down upon his bed, A soft sweet song was born within his thought; But if he sang the song, or if ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... to say, the fame outran The merit of this doubtful man, For taciturnity in him, Though not a mere caprice or whim, Was not a virtue, such as truth, High birth, or beauty, wealth ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... indulgence. I am a wretch, I am justly punished. I, and I only, am to blame for all their sins; I spoiled them. To-day they are as eager for pleasure as they used to be for sugar-plums. When they were little girls I indulged them in every whim. They had a carriage of their own when they were fifteen. They have never been crossed. I am guilty, and not ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... ring, Not without a prouder tread And a peal of exultation: Little right has he to sing 360 Through whose heart in such an hour Beats no march of conscious power, Sweeps no tumult of elation! 'Tis no Man we celebrate, By his country's victories great, 365 A hero half, and half the whim of Fate, But the pith and marrow of a Nation Drawing force from all her men, Highest, humblest, weakest, all, For her time of need, and then 370 Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower, Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall, Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem. ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... wanted building blocks, And picture books and toys, A saddle horse that gayly rocks, And games for little boys. But now he's big and all that stuff His whim no longer suits; He tells us that he's old enough To ask ...
— Just Folks • Edgar A. Guest
... at his rugged, resolute face, smiling at her now with that peculiar forgiving tenderness that an older person bestows upon a child that is about to yield its childish whim. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim of his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... cozen'd by a thing of clouts, a she moth, That every silkmans shop breeds; to be cheated, And of a thousand duckets by a whim wham? ...
— Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... sullenly excused his outbreak on the ground of the magnitude of the interests which my carelessness had endangered and the opening to harass the queen which I had heedlessly given. "This cipher," he said, "has long been a whim with my wife, from whom, for good reasons well known to you and connected with the Grand Duke's Court, I have thought fit to withhold it. Now nothing will persuade her that I have not granted to another what I refused her. I tremble, my friend, lest you be found to have done more ill to France in ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... breakfast. On account of this abstinence, Henrik now jested, and Petrea answered him quite gaily; Louise, on the contrary, took up the matter quite seriously, and thought—as many others did—that this whim of Petrea's had a distant relationship to folly; and folly, Louise—the sensible Louise—considered the most horrible of horrors; Louise, who was so ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... to miss her presence—he had eaten a very tolerable lunch of bread and cold meat in solitude, so her fears about his appetite in her absence were not well founded—she desired to have her meal upstairs in her own room; and poor Molly, not daring to tell the servants of this whim, had to carry up first a table, which, however small, was too heavy for her; and afterwards all the choice portions of the meal, which she had taken great pains to arrange on the table, as she had seen such things done at Hamley, ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Not worthy!" He had not thought her fit to be his wife. Her father and her world would think it quite otherwise. They would count him unworthy to mate with her, an heiress, the pet of society; he a man who had given up his life for a whim, a fad, a fanatical fancy! But she knew it was not so. She knew him to be a man of all men. She knew it was true that she was not such a woman as a man like that could fitly wed, and the ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... difference between a man who volunteers roguery; and a man on whom it is thrust by the world. Circumstances, you see, are my reason for every thing. Make a hard bargain with Mordecai, and ten to one but you are caught in his trap. Throw yourself on his mercy; and if the whim takes him, I have known him as generous as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont, upon festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his friends by DRAWING OUT one of his servants, exceedingly fond of what he termed, his "thravels," and in whom a good deal of whim, some queer stories, and, perhaps more than all, long and faithful services had established a right of loquacity. He was one of those few trusty and privileged domestics who, if his master unheedingly uttered a rash thing in a fit of passion, would venture to set him right. ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... compensating for his earlier abstinence. Plutina, studying him covertly, noted the beginnings of drunkenness and its various stages. There was gruesome fascination in her scrutiny; for she knew that her honor rested on the hazard of a sot's whim. ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... State and for the transaction of public business. The Palaces I have named were all constructed from time to time to serve as residences for the ten to thirty persons recognized as of the blood Royal, who removed from one to the other as convenience or whim may have suggested. They are generally very spacious, probably averaging one to two hundred apartments each, all constructed of the best materials and furnished and adorned with the most lavish disregard of cost. I roughly estimate the cost of ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... avoid them, and so he plunged into them. His only rule was not to be misled by the spelling. That was no guide anyhow. He avoided every recognised phrase in the language and mispronounced everything in order that he shouldn't be suspected of ignorance, but whim. ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... laws and statutes are put forth as pretexts for wicked counsels, and judges, affecting the equity of Cato or Cassius, sit on the bench, though in fact everything is done at the discretion of over-arrogant power, on the whim of which every man's life or death depends, the mischief is fatal ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... began his career, as an author, in periodical literature. His first work was a humorous journal, entitled "Salmagundi, or the Whim-Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esq. and Others," originally published in numbers in New York, where it met with a very flattering reception. The date of the first paper is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 584 - Vol. 20, No. 584. (Supplement to Vol. 20) • Various
... girls over the roughest sections of the road. I thought as we scrambled through impenetrable scrub and crawled over rocky piles that it was the strangest expedition that had ever set forth. If Leith was the wicked devil that we suspected him to be, four persons were risking their lives to gratify the whim of a half-crazy scientist who was dying for notoriety. He would not be turned aside from his pursuit of the specimens which Leith had told him of; his daughters would not desert him, and their resolve had brought Holman and myself. We were blind automatons that the ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... must exercise care not to be carried away by a yearning for novelty. Least of all should any subject be admitted to the course of study that does not have behind it something more substantial and enduring than whim or caprice. ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... pitch tent and make beds, and, while breakfast is being cooked, to dismantle the camp and, so far as may be, to repack Pilgrim; the Boy collects driftwood, wipes dishes, and helps at what he can—while all hands row or paddle through the livelong day, as whim or need dictates. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... said he, as we watched the rear carriages of our train disappearing round a curve; "I am sorry to make you the victim of what may seem a mere whim, but on my life, Watson, I simply CAN'T leave that case in this condition. Every instinct that I possess cries out against it. It's wrong—it's all wrong—I'll swear that it's wrong. And yet the lady's story ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for an empty whim! Don't listen to her, Albert, and above all things, don't let Mazarin drag you down. Keep constantly in your mind that he has had his day, and will never return to power. Last of all, remember you are always ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... thereof, and sentenced to the lash? Not at all! She was brought by her master to be whipped by the common executioner, without trial, judge, or jury, just at his beck or nod, for some real or supposed offence, or to gratify his own whim or malice. And he may bring her day after day, without cause assigned, and inflict any number of lashes he pleases, short of twenty-five, provided only he pays the fee. Or if he choose, he may have a private ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... called in to screw down the coffin in my presence. My mother afterwards called me to her room, and told me that she was much troubled about the cross. The amulet being of great value, my uncle Aylwin of Alvanley had tried to dissuade her from carrying into execution what he called 'the absurd whim of a mystic'; but my mother urged my promise, and there had been warm words between them, as my mother told me—adding, however, 'and the worst of it is, that scamp Wynne, whom your uncle introduced into this house without my knowledge or sanction, was ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... was said, override grave economic considerations. In recent years, however, a change seems to have taken place in public opinion, and some people now venture to assert that this so-called Imperial whim was an act of far-seeing policy. As by far the greater part of the goods and passengers are carried the whole length of the line, it is well that the line should be as short as possible, and that branch lines should be constructed to the towns lying to the right ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... the elasticity of my character. "Well, in the first place, I don't think my ideal would speak like that," said she. "He would be a harder, sterner man, not so ready to adapt himself to a silly girl's whim. But, above all, he must be a man who could do, who could act, who could look Death in the face and have no fear of him, a man of great deeds and strange experiences. It is never a man that I should love, but always the glories he had won; for they would be reflected upon me. Think ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been used as a peg upon which to hang every whim, fancy, formula, and vocal vagary that has floated through the human mind in the last two centuries. It has furnished an excuse for inflicting upon vocal students every possible product of the imagination, normal and ...
— The Head Voice and Other Problems - Practical Talks on Singing • D. A. Clippinger
... making a study of that singular man. He appeared to me the marked type of a class which ought to exist somewhere but which was unknown to me. One could never tell whether his outbursts were the despair of a man sick of life, or the whim ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... taken too much for granted, you and Betty. Ten years ago your sister gave herself to me. She is mine. I will not for a whim, for a passion, for a temporary alienation, let her go. Neither will I have my good name and the name of a good woman besmirched for the sake of this impertinent desire for a release. I love my wife"—his voice was especially Hebraic and ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... combined looks of simple subtlety,—where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended, that all the languages of Babel set loose together, could not express them;- -they are communicated and caught so instantaneously, that you can scarce say which party is the infector. I leave it to your men ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... like a Malay fishing prahu than an honest-to-God English literary vessel," began inauspiciously with the publication of The Intended (1894), a tragic novel about two look-alikes, one rich, the other poor, who switch places on a whim. Bewildered by the novel's lack of success, Stacpoole consulted his friendly muse, Pearl Craigie, alias John Oliver Hobbes, who suggested a comic rather than tragic treatment. Years later, Stacpoole retold the story in The Man Who Lost Himself (1918), a commercially successful comic novel ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... has caught so perfectly each whim of nature in field and forest, and called from hiding the furtive furred and feathered folk, who come and go like ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... seemed aimless to rise in the morning, because there was nothing awaiting her attention. She was so free that there was no object in breakfasting, because there was no obligation demanding her strength. She was so free that whether she should go out or remain indoors depended merely upon the whim of the moment. There was for her nothing either without ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... flock-bed, but repaired with straw, With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw; The George and Garter dangling from that 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 Claverdon's proud alcove, The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love, Or, just as gay, at council in a ring Of mimic'd statesmen and their merry King. No wit to flatter left of all his store, No fool to laugh at, which he valued more, Then ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... my dear friend," answered the old man very mildly, "you would not have toucht on this string again, which thrills far too painfully through my whole frame. Pray convince yourself that this long-formed resolution, which you if you please may term a whim, I cannot possibly revoke; it is much too firmly intertwined with my whole being. What we do from conviction as we call it, from pondering about a matter and balancing it first in one scale and then in the other, over and over again, is seldom worth much. Whatever is permanent, characteristic, ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... known only to collectors and have no standard market value. Others fail to catch the popular fancy for reasons not obvious to the layman. While the intrinsic qualities go far in determining the desirability of a stone, it is clear that whim and chance have been no small factors in determining the demand or lack of demand for some stones. As in other minerals, value has both ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... not an abrogation of the Sabbath, but, on the contrary, a confirmation of the universal and merciful appointment. It does not give permission to keep or neglect it, according to whim or for the sake of amusement, but it does draw, strong and clear, the distinction between a positive rite which may be modified, and an unchangeable precept of the moral law which it is better for a man to die than to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... looked up to see whether there was not a smile upon his face. She had no idea that her new "whim" for serious reading was to be allowed to pass without remark. But his look was quite grave as he ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... to have been the actual, even if remote, cause of the great imposition of Arthur Orton. Had matters been conducted as one might have anticipated they would among people blessed with the means of gratifying every whim and caprice, Roger Tichborne would have lived and died like other men, and his name would never have been known except as a quiet country gentleman of English origin and French tastes, which led him into more or less eccentricities, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... prison regulations were denied to the men until a few hours before their release a month later, when the prisoners were permitted by the gaoler to purchase them, no doubt with an eye to reversion to him in the course of a few hours. From time to time the regulations as to food were varied at the whim of the gaoler. On one day only cooked food would be allowed in; on another only raw food; on a third nothing but tinned stuff; on a fourth all was turned back at the gates with the exception of that obtained by a few individuals at ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... his eye over the sleeping group,—for when the firing had ceased the whole party had again sought their repose,— and he could not help admiring the athletic and sinewy limbs that lay scattered around the gloomy vault, in every posture that ease or whim dictated. From the stout frames of the men, his glance was directed to the stack of firearms, from whose glittering tubes and polished bayonets strong rays of light were reflected, even in that dark apartment. Manual followed the direction of his eyes, and watched ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... hate Roger; you cannot make me love him in a minute. I will never take his hand. I will be his enemy as long as I live. In my heart of hearts I have cursed him, and I will not be friendly now because of a whim of yours." ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... was he had never before realized the true worth of his wife, how he had been so madly infatuated and adoring of her slightest whim during the years of earning his fortune and the brief period of their formal engagement. Almost reluctantly the anaesthesia of unreality and distorted values was disappearing, leaving Steve with but one conclusion: That it had been his own conceited ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... listen awhile, If ever you wished to smile, Or hear a true story of old, Attend to what I now unfold! 'Tis of a lad whose fame did resound Through every village and town around, For fun, for frolic, and for whim, None ever was to equal him, And his name was Arthur O'Bradley! O! rare Arthur O'Bradley! wonderful Arthur ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... mirth, found envy vanquishing scorn. As for the ladies, they had ceased to smile at the mention of Rosalind, whom none had seen, though all had heard of the girl who had been turned from her ruin at Maudlin's whim; and that this ragged lady should be vaunted over their heads was an insult only equaled by the presence among their shining champions of the Rusty Knight. For by this name ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... justices Have strove what they could, all this rage to suppress; And I hope many more Will exert the like power, Since none will, depend on't, Get a jot of preferment. But men of this kidney, as I told you before.— I'll tell you a story: Once upon a time, Some hot-headed fellows must needs take a whim, And so were so weak (Twas a mighty mistake) To pull down and abuse Bawdy-houses and stews; Who, tried by the laws of the realm for high-treason, Were hang'd, drawn, and quarter'd for that very reason. When the time came about For us all to set out, We went ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... preoccupied and speechless; the coffee was wrong, the letters late and stupid. She felt herself at cross-purposes with her foolish little world. If James had resought her love overnight, it had been a passing whim. She told herself that love so desired was almost ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... laborer; then, that education turns his head and makes him discontented with the plantation where wages reach the high water mark of six dollars a month, which may or may not be paid according to the whim of his employer; and finally that the privilege of respectable accommodations furnished by common carriers which enjoy unusual public franchises makes him impudent, noisy and self-respecting, the proper remedy for which is a system of "Jim Crow Cars." Thus with the passing away of the Negro's ...
— The Disfranchisement of the Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 6 • John L. Love
... she said, "is oddity. For instance, I do not mix up affections with politics; let us talk politics,—business, if you will,—the rest can come later. However, it is not really oddity nor a whim that forbids me to mingle ill-assorted colors and put together things that have no affinity, and compels me to avoid discords; it is my natural instinct as an artist. We women ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... and "Scots pint" (magnum) of claret, a dirty little terra-cotta inkstand for the silver utensil of the Noctes, and a single large tallow candle for Christopher's "floods of light." He carried the whim so far as to construct for himself—his Noctes self—an imaginary hall-by-the-sea on the Firth of Forth, which in the same way seems to have had an actual resemblance, half of likeness, half of contrast, to the actual Elleray, and to enlarge his own comfortable town house in ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury |
