"Reckless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may happen that by some aberration of internal development or of external influence this conversion of energy may at one point or another fail to be completely effected. Then some fragment of infantile sexuality survives, in rare cases to turn all the adult faculties to its service and become reckless and triumphant, in minor and more frequent cases to be subordinated and more or less repressed into the subconscious sphere by voluntary or even involuntary and unconscious effort. Then we may have conflict, which, when it works happily, exerts ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... he, "the first time I have had in such matters to complain of your family, for I have been given great trouble in the Bodyguard by the reckless allegations of your son Louis, who was unknown to me, but who circulated, of his own accord, the most injurious accusations. Among other things he has stated that I was not noble, because of my father being ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... at a rapid pace towards the house, and Antonia, leaning over the balcony, saw him deliver a note to Rachela, and then hurry away at the same reckless speed. The note was from the doctor to his wife, and it did not tend to allay their anxiety. "Keep within the house," it said; "there are difficulties in the city. In an hour or two I ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Then, seeing that the enemy had gotten their arms above deck, and were making ready to make a fight of it, he followed up his words by casting a grapnel upon the poop of the Rhodians, who were making great way; and having thus made their poop fast to his prow, he sprang, fierce as a lion, reckless whether he were followed or no, on to the Rhodians' ship, making, as it were, no account of them, and animated by love, hurled himself, sword in hand, with prodigious force among the enemy, and cutting and thrusting right and left, slaughtered them like sheep; insomuch that the Rhodians, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... because Congress had delegated to the Peace Commission the whole matter of treating with them, and a council might lead only to additional complications. My refusal left them without hope of securing better terms, or of even delaying matters longer; so henceforth they were more than ever reckless and defiant. Denunciations of the treaty became outspoken, and as the young braves grew more and more insolent every day, it amounted to conviction that, unless by some means the irritation was allayed, hostilities would surely be upon us when the buffalo returned ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... her bag and brought it out—the last she had. And Monte, in his reckless joy, handed that over also to Soucin. The man was too bewildered to do more than bow as he might before ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... in her most reckless mood was alternately flouting and caressing Catharine Elsmere. She was not in the least afraid of Catharine, and it was that perhaps which had originally drawn Catharine's heart to her. Elsmere's widow was accustomed ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it was like you to forget, And cancel in the welcome of your smile My deep arrears of debt, And with the putting forth of both your hands To sweep away the bars my folly set Between us—bitter thoughts, and harsh de- mands, And reckless deeds that seemed untrue To love, when all the while My heart was aching through and through For you, sweet heart, and ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... nearer, and probably set your flesh a-tingle by frisking across your body. Once, while I was seated at the foot of a Hemlock Spruce in one of the most inaccessible of the San Joaquin yosemites engaged in sketching, a reckless fellow came up behind me, passed under my bended arm, and jumped on my paper. And one warm afternoon, while an old friend of mine was reading out in the shade of his cabin, one of his Douglas neighbors jumped ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... that he may be made the slave of desire and afterward if possible imbruted by sensuality. He is artfully brought into contact with Margaret, whom he instantly loves, who presently loves him, whom he wins, and upon whom, since she becomes a mother out of wedlock, his inordinate and reckless love imposes the burden of pious contrition and worldly shame. Then, through the puissant wickedness and treachery of Mephistopheles, he is made to predominate over her vengeful brother, Valentine, whom he kills in a street fray. Thus his ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Duke of Orleans, which God forbid! And therefore, as we trust, you seeth that Robert Waterton, for no trust, fair speech, nor promises that might be made unto him, nor for none other manner of cause, be so blinded by the said Duke that he be the more reckless of his keeping; but that, in eschewing of all perils that may befal, he take as good heed unto the sure keeping of his ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... arduously occupied in a toil that diverted attention from incidents which had less interest, because they were teeming less with instant destruction. Danger is known to lose its terrors by familiarity. The young borderers became reckless of their persons in the ardor of exertion, and as success began to crown their efforts, something like the levity of happier moments got the better of their concern. Stolen and curious glances were thrown around a place that had so long been kept sacred to the secret uses of the Puritan, ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... I., one Peter Crewys, an adventurous younger son of this obscure but ancient Devonshire family, had gained local notoriety by raising a troop of enthusiastic yeomen for his Majesty's service; subsequently his own reckless personal gallantry won wider recognition in many an affray with the parliamentary troops; and on the death of his royal master, Peter Crewys was forced to fly the country. He joined King Charles II. in his exile, whilst his prudent elder brother severed ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... Volcani. Here for once we get a fact of cult, which is a relief, after the loose and reckless statements of non-Roman and Christian writers. The flamen Volcanalis sacrificed to Maia on May 1st, which proves that there was a real and not a fancied connection between Volcanus and Maia, but certainly ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... a great braying and bleating a huddle of sheep moved unwillingly along it, led by bold goats with crooked horns and resolute beards, and pushed forward by that same reckless rider on his black mule, assisted by a horde of shouting Mexicans. But at the touch of the cold water, two days from the snow beds of the White Mountains, even the hardy bucks stepped back and shook their heads defiantly. In vain with showers of rocks and flapping tarpaulins the herders ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... that direction. There was a strong Spanish force stationed here; but these were seized with a panic and fled, their courage unhinged by the constantly rising waters, the appearance of the numerous fleet, and their knowledge of the reckless daring of the wild sailors. The dyke was cut, the two villages with their fortifications burned, and the fleet moved on to North Aa. The enemy abandoned this position also, and fled to Zoetermeer, a strongly fortified village a mile and a quarter from the city walls. Gradually ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... could be collected, were to be laden with provisions for the distressed garrison of the island fort, and convoyed up the stream by a flotilla of small warships, manned by "pirates" under a chief named Alan and carrying, besides their own daring and reckless crews, a force of three thousand Flemings. Two hundred strokes of the oar, John reckoned, would bring these ships to the French pontoon; they must break it if they could; if not, they could at least cooeperate ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... positive pledge between them whatever. There had been none at the moment she was affirming to me the very opposite. On the other hand he had certainly become engaged the day he returned. The happy pair went down to Torquay for their honeymoon, and there, in a reckless hour, it occurred to poor Corvick to take his young bride a drive. He had no command of that business: this had been brought home to me of old in a little tour we had once made together in a dogcart. In a dogcart he perched his companion for a rattle over Devonshire ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... Trinity. Then followed a long record of successful piracy, of battle, murder and sudden death, of mutiny and slaughter grim and great. Sharp, who, with all his crimes, was as good a navigator as he was reckless a fighter, sailed the Most Blessed Trinity with his crew of desperadoes the whole length of South America, rounded the Horn and, after eighteen months of adventure, peril and hardship, reached the West ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... risen and walked to the mantelpiece; then, with an apparent change of impulse, she had turned and faced him. He had noted that her figure was rounder than in girlhood, her complexion paler, but the sunlight still danced in her hair, and her reckless force had given way to a poise that suggested infinite ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... collecting themselves, as men awakened from a dream, half-a-dozen desperate gallants, reckless of sharks and eddies, leaped overboard, swam toward the flag, and towed it alongside ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... giant of '62! Bold Worden with his gallant crew Forces the fight; the day is won; Back to his den the monster's gone, With crippled claws And broken jaws, Defeated in a reckless cause. ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... crown as a cognisance by Balin. This device enables the poet to weave the rather confused and unintelligible adventures of Balin and Balan into the scheme, and to make it a stage in the progress of his fable. That Balin was reckless and wild Malory bears witness, but his endeavours to conquer himself and reach the ideal set by Lancelot are Tennyson's addition, with all the tragedy of Balin's disenchantment and despair. The strange fantastic house of Pellam, full of the ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... returned thanks for the Ladies, and, with all the reckless ordassity of a young feller of forty, was rash enuff to say, as how as he werrily believed, that if the prinsiple Hotel Keepers was to hintroduce pretty Gals as Waiters, all us old Fogys, as he rudely called us, woud have to go ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., January 3, 1891. • Various
... flies at a blow, and had been carried on chiefly because of the contradiction between such a title and his huge brawny strength and fierce courage. Poor Eberhard, with his undaunted bravery and free reckless good-nature, a ruffian far more by education than by nature, had been much loved by his followers. His widow would have reaped the benefit of that affection even if her exceeding sweetness had not gained it on her own account; and this giant was completely gained over to her, when, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conclusions were correct, I took pains to inquire, before proceeding upon my errand, into the character of the heirs who had inherited the property of Elwood Henderson and Christopher Bigelow, and found that in each case there was one among the rest who was well known for his profligacy and reckless expenditure. It was a significant discovery, and increased, if possible, my interest in running down this nefarious trafficker in the ...
— The Staircase At The Hearts Delight - 1894 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... be admitted that from all this controversy no party emerges in a very charitable light, Catholics and Protestants alike indulging in sarcasms and reckless accusations against Freemasonry, the Freemasons retorting with far from brotherly forbearance.[353] But, again, one must remember that all these men were of their age—an age which seen through the eyes of Hogarth would certainly ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... said Gaston, "I should be by a long score the debtor if we came to that. If it had not been for Sir Reginald, I should be by this time a reckless freebooter, without a hope in this world or the next; if it had not been for you, these bones of mine would long since have been picked by my cousins, the Spanish wolves. But let the gold tarry in your keeping: it were better King Edward's good crowns should ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... reckless offer of my husband's evening things, which he as recklessly accepted, not knowing if he could get into them; but I thought he did not look so badly as he was, in his sun-faded corduroys, the whole of him from head to foot as pale ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... He was a reckless young man, but recklessness is its own check—in fact, all things in life are self-regulating, everything is limited. Southey's secret marriage with Edith Fricker tamed him. Nothing tames men like marriage; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... their hard, reckless faces would have convinced anybody about their "daring." They looked as if they were ready ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... star, but the wily agent whom he had dispatched to the Continent four days before, was near him yet, and comfortably dining in a little snug public in the Tower Hamlets, on this very night. He was looking for tools suited to a dark game which busied his reckless heart. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... this war and return home will have a higher viewpoint, and there will be very few reckless drunken men among them. The "rough-neck" swearing soldier has found no place in ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... challenge to Lord Sidmouth, for which offence he was sentenced to a fine and imprisonment. On his liberation he determined to take revenge, and that of the most ample nature. For this purpose he gathered around him men of bold daring and reckless characters. The principal of these accomplices were, Ings, a butcher; Davidson, a Creole; and Brunt and Tidd, shoemakers. After a series of meetings the united band of these desperadoes determined to destroy his majesty's ministers. Their plan was this:—that forty or fifty of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that sheep-stealing was one of the commonest offences against the law at that time, in spite of the dreadful penalty. Hunger made the people reckless. My old friend Joan, and other old persons, have said to me that it appeared in those days that the men were strangely indifferent and did not seem to care whether they were hanged or not. It is true they did not hang very ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... tappin' him encouragin' on the knee, "you've got the spendin' part down fine; but that alone don't fill the bill. As I take it, Pyramid meant for us to do more than just scatter around a lot of expensive gifts reckless like. 'Some kind and generous act,' is the way he ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... considered a fit dwelling place only for the Hudson Bay officer kept there by his loyalty to "the Company," or the half-breed runner to whom it was native land, or the more adventurous land-hungry settler, or the reckless gold-fevered miner. Only under some great passion did men leave home and those dearer than life, and casting aside dreams of social, commercial, or other greatness, devote themselves to life on that rude frontier. But such ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... now fourteen, broad and strong, and tall for his age. He was the idol of the school,—dashing, daring, reckless, and good-natured. There was almost nothing that he would not attempt, and there were very few things that he could not do. He never fought, however—from principle; and his strength and size often saved ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... few ranchers and packers hovered about the monte table awhile, hopeful, perhaps, of a clash between Dago and Munoz, but even this hope was crushed when, just about taps, two belated Mexicans, innocent or reckless of the proximity of signalling Indians across the stream, came mule-bestriding into the glare of the common room sconces and "ola'd," for Sanchez, who hurried out to meet them, heard their excited tale, cashed in his few chips, and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... waker" (Suppl. vol.i.1-29), when it occurs in a host of MSS., not to mention the collection of tales which Prof. Habicht converted into the Arabian Nights by breaking the text into a thousand and one sections (Bresl. Edit. iv. 134-189, Nights cclxxii. ccxci.). The reckless assertions that "the whole" of the last fourteen (Gallandian) tales have nothing whatever to do with "The Nights" (p. 168); and that of the histories of Zayn al-Asnam and Aladdin, "it is abundantly certain that they belong to no manuscript of the Thousand and One Nights" (p. 169), have been ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... sense of insult, but cannot as a rule be called pugnacious; they excite themselves to fight by indulging in strange war-dances and by singing songs full of braggadocio; and, after having been thus wrought up to a state of frenzy, they are perfectly reckless as to personal hazard. The Maori is not, however, a treacherous enemy; he gives honorable notice of his hostile intent, warring only in an open manner, thus exhibiting a degree of chivalry unknown to our American Indians. Money with the Maori is considered ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... alongside life as they are able to observe it. If our word and their observation agree, the case is made. It is perfectly silly to begin to damn us before it has been shown that our statements are baseless or reckless. The first item to be considered is the truth of what we have set forth. And that is precisely the item which our critics choose ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... legislature of Illinois during that period was that it enacted laws setting on foot an extensive system of internal improvements, in the form of railroads and canals, altogether beyond the actual needs of transportation for the then existing population of the State, and the consequent reckless creation of a State debt for money borrowed at extravagant interest and liberal commissions. The State underwent a season of speculative intoxication, in which, by the promised and expected rush of immigration and the swelling currents of its business, ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... made its own paragraphs and punctuation marks, and how surprising and unexpected many of them were! Commas would become semicolons and periods give place to exclamation points, in the most reckless sort of fashion. The event which had been planned as a period to a day's doings would often instead become a hyphen, leading into and connecting us ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... noble father, "were it contrition instead of shame that inspired this attitude, it might be better. I have often warned you of the fatal consequences of a reckless indulgence of the passions. More than once I have predicted to you, that however great might be your confidence in your ingenuity and your resources, the hour would arrive when such a career would place you in a position as despicable as it was shameful. That hour ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... was not his elevated rank which kept him on the bank. All the suffering he endured could be seen when he inquired every instant where the crossing was, if they could still hear cannon rolling over the bridge, if the cries had not ceased somewhat in that direction. "The reckless creatures! Why could they not wait a ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Court of Equity, to M. Aubaret, to disabuse his mind, and impart to him all the truth of the case. But the "furious Frank" seized the imposing magnate by the hair, drove him from his door, and flung his betel-box after him,—a reckless impulse of outrage as monstrous as the most ingenious and deliberate brutality could have devised. Rudely to seize a Siamese by the hair is an indignity as grave as to spit in the face of a European; and the betel- box, beside being a royal present, was an essential part of the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... from Jouy to the mills, Madame Desvarennes had noticed the chateau, the slate roofs of the turrets of which rose gracefully from a mass of deep verdure. The Count de Cernay, the last representative of a noble race, had just died of consumption, brought on by reckless living, leaving nothing behind him but debts and a little girl two years old. Her mother, an Italian singer and his mistress, had left him one morning without troubling herself about the child. Everything was to be sold, by order ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... longing for adventure rising up inside him, and a desire to do wild things, and a cruel feeling that he did not care what happened to other people so long as he had a good time, he gave in to himself and began the most wild and reckless life you can imagine. He armed himself with a great ash-bow and a sharp spear from his father's armoury. He slung a shield on his back, and stuck his belt full of knives and daggers and arrows. Then he went about and collected a gang of all the wildest boys ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... Thersites, reviling Agamemnon shepherd of the host. But goodly Odysseus came straight to his side, and looking sternly at him with hard words rebuked him: "Thersites, reckless in words, shrill orator though thou art, refrain thyself, nor aim to strive singly against kings. For I deem that no mortal is baser than thou of all that with the sons of Atreus came before Ilios. Therefore were it well that thou shouldest not have kings ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... winds might have sailed up to Brooklyn. Washington hoped and prayed that Howe would try to carry Brooklyn Heights by assault. Then there would have been at least slaughter on the scale of Bunker Hill. But Howe had learned caution. He made no reckless attack, and soon Washington found that he must move away or face the danger of losing ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... the sun, for at these posts along the distant border something of military discipline has to be maintained, lest those in charge find their rough wards and employes breaking loose from their authority; for they have to deal with reckless spirits at times, and, of course, liquor frequently brings about trouble, just as in logging camps and all ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... reveals his love as though he told the tale of another, but he is met with scorn and only bidden to fight the husband who has repulsed her. Bellmour, meantime, in despair and rage at his misery plunges into reckless debauchery, and in company with Sir Timothy visits a bagnio, where they meet Betty Flauntit, the knight's kept mistress, and other cyprians. Hither they are tracked by Charles, Bellmour's younger brother, and Trusty, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... had come. One who watched averred that only the captain and a child not over a year and a half old alighted from the coach. (The nurse came in another vehicle.) The child started another rumor. She was a mysterious, unknown factor, and the gossips bandied the captain's name about in a reckless manner. Good old dames shook their heads knowingly and declared they had suspected the captain had a wife all the time ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... restrained by the wishes or demands of their fellow colonists.[6] Although they were restricted by the charter and by the instructions of the Council in England, the isolation of the settlement and the turbulent spirit of the adventurers made them reckless in enforcing their own will upon the colonists. More than once they were guilty of unpardonable ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... opened to the public. There were but few people in the territory at that time, except such as had been brought hither in connection with the building of that road, and while some of them were good people, well-educated, and came to stay, many were reckless, wicked and wandering. The first election was held in September, 1869, for the election of a delegate in congress, and members of the Council and House of Representatives for the first territorial ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... for five minutes, in the wing, amid jostling and shuffling and shoving, that they held this conference. Miriam, splendid in a brocaded anachronism, a false dress of the beginning of the century, and excited and appealing, imperious, reckless and good-humoured, full of exaggerated propositions, supreme determinations and comic irrelevancies, showed as radiant a young head as the stage had ever seen. Other people quickly surrounded her, and Peter saw that though, she wanted, as she said, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... her, and who, not being over-careful in the terms with which they expressed their approval, finally by their riotous admiration drove us inside. At Miss Cullen's suggestion we three had a second game of poker, but with chips and not money. She was an awfully reckless player, and the luck was dead in my favor, so Madge kept borrowing my chips, till she was so deep in that we both lost account. Finally, when we parted for the night she held out her hand, and, in the ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... reckless. Of his physical courage there was no question. He had inherited his father's and his mother's to the full. But he lacked their every other balance. He was idle, he loathed the store and all belonging to it. He detested the life he was forced to live in this desolate ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... his seat and called on the horse, and urged it into a reckless gallop over the slippery asphalt. He considered nothing else but speed, and looking neither to the left nor right dashed off down Broad Street into Chestnut, where his course lay straight away to the office, now ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... himself back to his chair and lowered himself into it with what the boys thought was a most reckless disregard of the article's capacity and strength. But the chair only creaked dismally. "Of course you do! Of course you do!" he rumbled smilingly. "But s'posing I was to tell you you hadn't any ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... critics have formed the same opinion about a piece, and all wish to say that it is good—a very bad term to employ—one will call it good, another very good; a third, exceedingly good; a fourth, great; a fifth, splendid, a sixth, superb; and so on till some reckless language-monger uses the state-occasion term—a "work of genius." How is the reader to guess that they all mean the same thing? Moreover, if they were to use identical words every reader would put a ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... apprehension upon the part of all that the huge trapper, whom young Brainerd had met at night, would make his appearance. Should he do so, it would be certain to precipitate a difficulty of the worst kind, as he was morose, sullen, treacherous, envious and reckless of danger. ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... offer a vote of thanks to this reckless madman, for having overturned us without hurt to any one! It occurs to us two new-chums that our life in this country is likely to be eventful, if this kind of thing is the ordinary style of coaching. And we begin to understand what our driver meant, when he alluded to the grave responsibility of ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... must be remembered that the admitted great stain upon Nelson's fame, which it would be wicked to deny, lies not in a general looseness of life, but in the notoriety of one relation,—a notoriety due chiefly to the reckless singleness of heart which was not ashamed to own its love, but rather gloried in the public exhibition of a faith in the worthiness of its object, and a constancy, which never wavered to the hour of his death.[14] The pitifulness ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... risk, not of explosion, but of being heard; but with a curious feeling of reckless excitement upon me I held up the canister, stepping softly over the ash floor, and guiding the terrible machine on till the ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... letter was headed Nashville, and he was evidently intent upon deceiving his lady-love into the belief that he had penetrated the Yankee lines, and was surrounded by foes. Had the letter reached her fair hands, what earnest prayers would have gone up for the succor of this bold and reckless youth. ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... this young and reckless member of the gang had struck the note of discord. Wilson seemed most detached from any sentiment prevailing there. Some strong thoughts were ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... plea of justification. With them the lifetime of a man is only regarded as a moment. After death these Chiefs must be faced, and the only things that they will consider will be his works. Life in the Other World is for ever, and only the reckless fool forgets this fact. The man who has led a life free from lies and deceit shall live after death like ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... saw life. Cape Town, with its pathetic dullness and palpable efforts to keep up a show of business; Kimberley, with its deadly respectability—both paled in interest beside their younger sister, so light-hearted, reckless, and enterprising. Before long, in spite of gloomy reflections on the evils of gold-seeking, I fell under the fascination of what was then a wonderful town, especially wonderful from its youth. The ever-moving crowds which thronged the streets, every man of which appeared to be full of important ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... low murmur at this, and then a cessation of all words in the desperate defence forced upon the little party; for, as if maddened by the long resistance, and utterly reckless of the losses they had suffered, the Ghazis came on, howling and bounding to the door, leaping up and reaching in to strike downward with all their force, and generally paying the penalty of death; for even with their swords extended to the ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... ceasing, Lancelot left The hall long silent, till Sir Gawain—nay, Brother, I need not tell thee foolish words,— A reckless and irreverent knight was he, Now boldened by the silence of his King,— Well, I will tell thee: "O King, my liege," he said, "Hath Gawain failed in any quest of thine? When have I stinted stroke in foughten ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... vessel; and it seems not unfair to say that they gave way in disorder, like any other irregular force before a determined onslaught, made a feeble effort to get off, and then ran their boats ashore and fired them. They had but one chance, and that a desperate one, to bear down with reckless speed on the oncoming ships and ram them. Failing to do this, and beginning to falter, the ships came among them like dogs among a flock of sheep, willing enough to spare, had they understood the weakness of their ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... If you once get a reputation for complete, immovable, and reckless indolence the world will leave you to your own thoughts, which ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... not so sure of it as he was of his other exercises. But it was a "thriller" and that was what the public seemed to want—something that made them gasp, sit up, and hold their breath while they waited to see if "anything would happen" to the reckless performer. ...
— Joe Strong on the Trapeze - or The Daring Feats of a Young Circus Performer • Vance Barnum
... me read it: "I apologise to Captain Dancy for the reckless and monstrous charge I made against him, and I retract every word ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... neurasthenic and neurotic individuals." (Kellogg, A Text-book of Mental Diseases, 1897, pp. 94-95.) Again, at the outset of the article on "Masturbation," in Tuke's Dictionary of Psychological Medicine, Yellowlees states that, on account of the mischief formerly done by reckless statements, it is necessary to state plainly that "unless the practice has been long and greatly indulged, no permanent evil effects may be observed to follow." Naecke, again, has declared ("Kritisches zum Kapitel der Sexualitaet," ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... your machinery to rust in the rain, and your workmen to rot with sickness. You have not only done nothing, but you haven't a blue print to show me what you meant to do. I have never in my life come across laziness and mismanagement and incompetency upon such a magnificent and reckless scale. You have not built the pier, you have not opened the freight road, you have not taken out an ounce of ore. You know more of Valencia than you know of these mines; you know it from the Alameda to the Canal. You can tell me what night the band plays in the Plaza, but you can't ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... of gloom are over. I ceased to try, and—but as I wanted to add, Gabrielle is clever at housekeeping along the most approved scientific lines. Cooking she regards as a form of chemistry, and she keeps scales in her kitchen to save good dishes from disaster due to the reckless "pinch of this and pinch of that" system. What a contrast with Jim's system of frying eggs! And the marvel of it is, that, in spite of this hospital-like regularity and method, her little dinners at her beautiful home in our model industrial community are amazingly gratifying—solid ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... opened his heart towards the young couple, and was disposed to render a deserving youth and a beloved niece happy. This was the smallest class of all; and, what is a little remarkable, it contained only the most reckless and least virtuous of all those who dwelt on Oyster Pond. The parson of the parish, or the Pastor as he was usually termed, belonged to the second category, that good man being firmly impressed that most, if not all of Deacon Pratt's ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... profest, At love and lovers laughs, And o'er the bowl with reckless jest, His pretty spinster quaffs; Then, whilst all sobbing, Janet cries "She scorns the scornful swain!" With angry haste her wheel she plies, And—snaps ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... that apprehends death to be no more dreadful but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... and a reckless thing to do. He picked himself up and limped away, muttering. Turner had watched the scene with his cold blue eyes, and the little ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... field with no favors—it is a fairly safe prophecy that the vested rights earned and held by the fit and the strong will never be handed over as a gift to the unfit and the weak and the don't-trys. The savings of the man who has not squandered his earnings on saloons and reckless living will never be taxed to support in idleness—even an idle old age—the feckless who have spent on stomach and lust what other men save. Sounds hard; doesn't it, in the face of almost universal nostrums for the salvation and propagation of the ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... steady with their paddles. We hailed them, and plunged in the water to swim out to them. The natives, stung with shame and rage at having their prisoner torn from them in the very moment of triumph, with such reckless boldness, swarmed down to the beach and pursued us into the water. They seemed excited almost to frenzy at the prospect of our escape. Some standing upon the shore assailed the canoe with showers of stones, ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... She did a reckless thing that night, out of pure defiance. It was a winter voyage in wartime. The night before the women had gone down, sedately dressed, to dinner. The girl she had tried to speak to had worn a sweater. So ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Motte, closing her ears to the voice of conscience and discretion, and listening only to the pleadings of a reckless and fatal passion, wrote ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... with all divine sentiments, yet grasping also at the pleasures of sense, without submitting to their law. That is a grief we all feel, a knot we cannot untie. Tasso's is no infrequent case in modern biography. A man of genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless of physical laws, self-indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate, querulous, a "discomfortable cousin," a thorn to himself and ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... know what that if was. But Powell could not say. There was something—a difference. No doubt there was—in fineness perhaps. The father, fastidious, cerebral, morbidly shrinking from all contacts, could only sing in harmonious numbers of what the son felt with a dumb and reckless sincerity. ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... cargo till we were scarce five inches above the river. Not only do they cram the lower or freight deck, but the gallery outside the saloons and cabins is filled till all the use and comfort thereof is destroyed, and scarce a passage along them to be obtained. Seeing the accidents such reckless freighting must necessarily give rise to, what more simple than obliging every vessel to have a float or loading line painted from stem to stern at a certain elevation, making the captain and owners liable to a heavy penalty if the said line be brought ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... daunted, but rising from his knees with an air of reckless pugnacity] I ain't afraid of you. With your Louisa! Louisa! Miss Straker is good enough for you, ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... her heart by contrasting its own desolate abandonment to grief. Above all, she was revolted by the unnatural ceremonies of a Roman funeral. The corpse exposed—the cheeks painted—the parading procession, all shocked the delicacy of her real and reckless affliction. But when this was over—when the rite of death was done, and when, in the house wherein her sire had presided, and she herself had been left to a liberty wholly unrestricted, she saw strangers (for such comparatively her relatives were to her) settling themselves down, with vacant ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... kosher bar, whereon are wines and spirits in brand new decanters, glasses freshly bought and cleansed, and a virgin cloth surmounting the whole. The domestic and hardware shops are busy, for the home must be replenished with chaste vessels—pots and pans and all utensils are bought with reckless disregard of expense. Milk may not be bought from the milkman's cans. Each house fetches its own from the shops, in new, clean jugs, which are, of course, kosher; and nothing is eaten ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... dazed, numb and silent as after the first news of a terrific disaster. Every kind of public amusement or diversion was postponed, merry-making ceased everywhere, the wildest and most reckless felt no inclination towards frivolity, even the games of children were checked and repressed, gravity and solemnity enveloped the entire city and its vast suburbs. The men talked soberly, as if at a funeral; while for women ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... more than half an hour's start of them. Bonner was his own chauffeur and he was a reckless one to-day. Luck was against him at the outset. The vigorous old detective inspired to real speed, for the first time in his lackadaisacal life, left the newspaper men at the bridge nearly three-quarters of an hour before Bonner passed the same spot, driving furiously ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... which had fallen on my fortunes, I shunned the haunts of the gay and reckless, and became a cicerone to the travellers; for my reputation as a libertine had reached Poland, and I was ashamed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... heavens ring with her lamentations; she tore her hair and scattered it to the winds, she beat her face with her hands and showed all the signs of grief and sorrow that could be conceived to come from an afflicted heart. "Cruel, reckless woman!" she cried, "how easily wert thou moved to carry out a thought so wicked! O furious force of jealousy, to what desperate lengths dost thou lead those that give thee lodging in their bosoms! O husband, whose unhappy fate in being mine hath borne thee from ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was sailing that day for the Lipari Isles, and she did not know how soon he would be back. Sebastiano had not cried. He loved change, and was radiant at the prospect of his voyage. But Lucrezia's heart was torn. She knew Sebastiano, knew his wild and adventurous spirit, his reckless passion for life, and the gifts it scatters at the feet of lusty youth. There were maidens in the Lipari Isles. They might be beautiful. She had scarcely been jealous of Sebastiano before her betrothal to him, for then she had had no rights over him, and she was filled with the spirit of humbleness ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... disappeared, to this very day, no word or message ever came from her," the invalid said. "I have never known whether she was dead or alive, married, or, terrible thought, perhaps driven into a reckless life by her one false step with me. This last fear has been a constant torture ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... after page she wrote of him; citing innumerable instances of his valor, both while under gruelling fire out on the field and endless hours of indefatigable work beneath the dug-out shelters. Having fully covered his present, she dashed into his past with a reckless disregard of ink and paper, and filled many other pages. Only once did the Colonel interrupt, and then ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... tall, big-boned, thin man, with something sinister in the lines of his horseman's cloak, and something reckless in the way he set his spurred heel on the ground. He was the son of an old Marsh squire. Old Rangsley had been head of the last of the Owlers—the aristocracy of export smugglers—and Jack had sunk a little in becoming the head of the Old Bourne Tap importers. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the ice-cream vender's establishment, where with reckless extravagance he ordered a penny ice-cream all round for the half-dozen boys in his company, even then making a handsome thing out of the extra pay he had obtained from ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... been young and reckless; I have played the fool in my day and have seen plenty of knaves and scamps, but I have never called a thief a thief to his face, or talked of ropes in the house of a man who had been hung. I knew ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... others here now," cried Lady Dacre, "or perhaps I ought not to say two persons, but one and his shadow. People call him a reckless sort of a fellow—the man, not the shadow,—but I think him charming. It is Mr. Edmonson, the best whist player I ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... odd influence the little group of half-cynical, half-trifling, and wholly reckless men had become suddenly sober, earnest citizens. They said, "Go on," nodded their heads, and ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... is a fierce outbreak of the first motto, with a defiance of regret, in faster, reckless pace, brief, but suddenly ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... they would rush to battle and perish in thousands to win victory, but one great defeat would crush them. The story of the long fight which your Wallace, with a small following, made against the power of England, will never be told of an Irish leader. We have bravery and reckless courage, but we have none of the stubborn obstinacy of your Scottish folk. Were the flag raised the people would flock to it, and would fight desperately; but if they lost, there would be utter and complete collapse. The fortitude ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... The singers were on a level with the usual summer itinerants; the orchestra, made up partly of inexperienced men from Italy and non-union players from other cities, was unpardonably wretched. It was foolishly reckless in the composer to think that with such material as he had raked together in his native land and recruited here he could produce four of his operas within a week of his arrival in America. He must have ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... her questions. For a few minutes they held quite an animated conversation about France and the various phases of the war. Laurie had been in air service. One could see just how handsome he must have looked in his uniform. One would know also that he would be brave and reckless. It was written all over his face and in his very attitude. He showed ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... result had been, as always in such cases, a drawn battle; and damage would have accrued, not to the special literateurs, but to the general literary character. Prejudice or private pique always lurks at the bottom of such reckless assaults, and all men in the long run feel so. In Johnson's case, the causa belli was unquestionably political difference; and in Christopher North's it was the love of Scotland which so warmly glowed in his bosom, and which created a glow ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... repeated and reflected in the achievements of the infantry. Quite wonderful was the bearing of these men, mere private soldiers, in their magnificent nobility of sacrifice, their utter regardlessness of self. Each strove to set an example to the other of steadfast, almost reckless devotion ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... their means of subsistence by the capture of their cattle, the Caffres were rendered furious reckless, and no sooner had the expedition returned, than they commenced hostilities. They poured into the frontier districts, captured several detached military forts, drove the Dutch boors from the Zurweld, or neutral territory, and ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... warlike, in the simple sense of the word, than their rivals the Creeks, they were really more to be feared, as it was in consequence of their superior civilisation that they had lost some of their brute ferocity. If they were less reckless, they were better skilled; if less frantic in their fury, they coupled it with a wary vindictiveness which rendered the blow more fatal when it fell. The advances which they had made in civilisation had naturally ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... fierce defiance of misguided youth was in his veins. He felt a wild exultation seize him. Doubt and all problems were set aside. His eyes glowed with a reckless light, as he raced ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... sounded like a sob, he cried out, "You brave laddie! To theenk that you of all ithers should ha' coom to save a reckless loon lik' me, the noo! It's a joogement on me for me cruel leeing again' you, boy; you've heapit coals ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... friend. Young as she was in many things, in some ways she was very old indeed. She had been trained in another school from Caroline; she felt from the very first that upon certain questions her lovely friend was inexperienced, foolish and dangerously reckless. On the question of "men," for instance, Maggie, with clear knowledge of her father and her uncle, refused to follow Caroline's light and easy excursions. Caroline was disappointed; she had a great deal to say on the subject and could speak, she assured Maggie, from a vast variety of experience: ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... The movement of English thought in the eighteenth century found its perfect expression in the profound, sceptical, and yet essentially conservative, genius of Hume. How different was the attitude of Voltaire! With what a reckless audacity, what a fierce uncompromising passion he charged and fought and charged again! He had no time for the nice discriminations of an elaborate philosophy, and no desire for the careful balance of the judicial mind; his creed was simple and ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... you worried me, you wouldn't do it. You reelly wouldn't. I don't know what'll come to you, goin' on so reckless." ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... chambers actively hostile to him. Carnot, who had formerly opposed his assumption of the imperial title, was now the only one of his ministers to deprecate his abdication, but Napoleon himself saw no hope of retaining his power, or transmitting it to his son, without a reckless appeal to revolutionary passions. From this he shrank, and he represented himself at St. Helena as having sacrificed personal ambition ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... history of the man whose name was hanging solitary on the wall. It was not an altogether unusual one in that building. The candidate, a University man, had been in possession of an income of about L1,500 a year. He had been neither reckless nor extravagant, but suddenly, at the age of forty, with no trade or profession in his hands, he had seen his fortune lost. So he had taken his place among the "originals" and had started in the world anew as the driver of ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... place in the relations existing between himself and Flamby. For all her wildness and her reckless behaviour, that day she had appealed to him as something fragrantly innocent and bewilderingly sweet. The memory of the Charleswood photographs had assumed a different form, too, and he suddenly perceived possibilities ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... sent him about to seek another road. Unfortunately, as he hesitated a man sprang with a gesture of warning to his horse's head and seized it; and Tavannes, mistaking the motive of the act, lost his self- control. He struck the fellow down, and, with a reckless word, rode headlong into the procession, shouting to the black robes to make way, make way! A cry, nay, a shriek of horror, answered him and rent the air. And in a minute the thing was done. Too late, as the Bishop's Vicar, struck by his horse, fell ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... reckoned probably in Jamaican currency which stood at thirty per cent, discount. In order to relieve the need of this outside labor the management began that year to buy new Africans on a scale considered reckless by all the island authorities. In March five men and five women were bought; and in October 25 men, 27 women, 16 boys, 16 girls and 6 children, all new Congoes; and in the next year 51 males and 30 females, part Congoes and part Coromantees and nearly all of them eighteen to twenty years old. Thirty ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... change came. The failure of the West to lure pioneers was not due to poverty of soil or lack of natural riches: its resources were greater than the most reckless orator had dreamed. It was merely that its time had not come and that the men in charge of the country's affairs had not thrown enough energy into the task of speeding the coming of that time. Now fortune worked with Canada, not against it. The long ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... entered the library. He found Brandon alone, and bending earnestly over some letters which strewed his table. Mauleverer carelessly approached, and threw himself into an opposite chair. Sir William lifted his head, as he heard the movement; and Mauleverer, reckless as was that personage, was chilled and almost awed by the expression of his friend's countenance. Brandon's face was one which, however pliant, nearly always wore one pervading character,—calmness; whether ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... profited by the door of escape which he had tried to open for me. Neither of them wished to push the malice to the point of making me assume the Sheriff's risk, and Martin at least, and probably the Sheriff also, had taken my quick, half-unconscious words and acts as evidence of reckless determination. If I intended to live in the West I must go through ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... Glasco Charlton, "ever came to Georgia who took so quickly to the conditions under which they were to live or remained more loyal to her interests" than the Highlanders. "These men," says Jones, "were not reckless adventurers or reduced emigrants volunteering through necessity, or exiled through insolvency or want. They were men of good character, and were carefully selected for their military qualities.... Besides this military band, others among the Mackays, the Dunbars, ...
— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black
... doing great execution. But she was now to be subjected to an even severer test than the first headlong attack. She had demonstrated to the Moslem leaders that here was no vessel to be carried by mere reckless valour; a disciplined and ordered offensive was the only plan which promised success; the Osmanli must use their brain as well as their courage if that tattered flag, rescued from the water, and nailed to the stump of the mast of the galleon, was ever to be torn ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... was the first to realise the danger into which the reckless pursuit had led them. He concluded it was time to haul off, and sent a shot across the bow of ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... maun hae been the minister that broke the bowl. Pit it by for him till he comes. I'm no' gaun to be wracked oot o' hoose an' hame for reckless ministers." ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... the 20th of June next. If I get my extension then I may expect some respite, or, at least, opposition in another shape. I hope eventually to derive some benefit from the late decision, but the reckless and desperate character of my opponents may defeat all the good I expect from it. Such is the reward I have purchased for ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse |
