"Recklessness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seeking some sort of recompense in the discontented boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with degeneracy. A certain idle carelessness and recklessness of consistency soon comes of it. To bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, in any game, without growing the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... easier than others; and some scarcely seem to behold any labyrinth at all—they walk right through those matters which are walls and hedges to others, and look as though they never perceived that any such things were there. Is it because of recklessness of right, ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... they are, it is, for the most part, their own fault. There is generally the grossest inconsistency between their theories and their practice. Believing as they do that the least exposure will induce fever, they expose themselves with singular recklessness to the very causes of fever. After hurrying through the streets and getting into a violent perspiration, they plunge at once into some damp pit-like church or chill gallery, where the temperature is at least ten degrees lower than the outer air. The bald-headed, rosy John Bull, steaming with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... greatly grieved at the failure of this measure. He however lived to see his error, and the ruinous failure of that company through the recklessness of the Wall street management into whose hands, as had been predicted, that company finally fell. Judge John C. Wright, now in Columbus, advocated the aforesaid measure. He was then the senior editor of the Cincinnati ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... a room where a young man sat cleaning a revolver with one leg thrown across a second chair. Tilted on the back of his head was a cowpuncher's pinched-in hat. He too had black hair and a black mustache. Like all the Rutherfords he was handsome after a fashion, though the debonair recklessness of his good looks ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind: you must trust Him to do the best by you. You say the Hebrew ideal does not appeal to you. But I know better; for you half like me, and I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews! There must be a dash of recklessness about the man who gains the other world. 'All or nothing' is the requirement of the kingdom of Heaven. To gain yourself you must throw yourself away—'lose your soul.' You must have faith. 'He who loves makes his own the grandeur ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... acknowledged that those who would play this game on the strength of their own private opinion, unconfirmed as yet by any experimental verification, must have a serene confidence in their own wisdom on the one hand, and a recklessness of people's sufferings on the other, which Robespierre and St. Just, hitherto the typical instances of those united ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... He did not understand this new phase in Adrea's development. There was a curious hardness in her tone and a recklessness in her speech which were strange to him. And with it all he felt very helpless. He could not play the part of guardian and reprove her; he scarcely knew how to argue with her. Women and their ways were strange to him; and, besides, Adrea was ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that way. It is easier for me; I think it is—I know it is. But there are things to combat—impulses, a recklessness, perhaps something almost ruthless. What else I do not know, for I have never experienced violent emotions of any ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... undesirable gentry increased in numbers, and the infection of their opinions spread. American politics were as corrupt as they could be. Bribery and the robbery of public funds were unblushingly resorted to. A low moral tone with regard to such matters, combined with utter recklessness in speculation and a furious haste to get rich by any means, fair or foul, were, sad to say, prominent characteristics in the American nation in many other respects so great. To counteract these evils, which were great enough to have ruined any European ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... life, that the evils resulting from their having had no practical training in youth in respect to pecuniary responsibilities and obligations, that evil consequences will fall. The great cities are full of wealthy men whose lives are rendered miserable by the recklessness in respect to money which is displayed by their sons and daughters as they advance towards maturity, and by the utter want, on their part, of all sense of delicacy, and of obligation or of responsibility of any kind towards ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... her long and slender arms, clasping her hands above her head. He realised in her, with a disagreeable surprise, the note that was so unlike her mother—the note of recklessness, of vehement will. It was really ill-luck that some one else than Douglas Falloden could not have been found to look ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with the Crows many years, became a great man among them, could speak their language fluently. He was a giant, and fearless to recklessness, and by his deeds of daring became one of the first braves of the tribe. At one time, in a desperate fight with the Blackfeet, he shot down the first savage who opposed him, and with the war-club of his victim killed four others. His name among the Crows ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the little one in growing astonishment, for Eleanor's distress was evidently great, and jumping at conclusions with a child's recklessness,—"Eleanor!—don't you want ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... persisted in her ardent recklessness, trying not to feel the conscience-pricks of her divided allegiance, refusing to think too deeply, riding the top of the wave of her life—as she assured herself, living, living, living. At times she scarcely ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... by chemical processes. But you take not the least care to ensure these being so; I have myself seen the most destructive changes take place in water-colour drawings within twenty years after they were painted; and from all I can gather respecting the recklessness of modern paper manufacture, my belief is, that though you may still handle an Albert Duerer engraving, two hundred years old, fearlessly, not one-half of that time will have passed over your modern water-colours, ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... his Guard about him! The Guard, always reliable and full of the old grim dash and power which had been the firm foundation of the ducal throne from the beginning. Amongst their ranks was no slackening of discipline, of devotion, or of that splendid recklessness which had made them what they were—the premier Garde du Corps of Europe! In spirit he yearned once more to see their plumes and gleaming equipment come dancing down the sunny wind, and to hear the grand thunder of their charge, which but the other day he had been half-inclined to call ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... almost every possibility of eminence, deprived of their natural leaders, and consigned by the Legislature to utter ignorance, soon sank into the condition of broken and dispirited helots. A total absence of industrial virtues, a cowering and abject deference to authority, a recklessness about the future, a love of secret illegal combinations, became general among them. Above all, they learned to regard law as merely the expression of force, and its moral weight was utterly destroyed. For the greater part ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... unselfish optimism, I could see no light. And in the recklessness that so often besets youngsters of my temper, on like occasions, I went off to Newmarket next day with Mr. Fox and Lord Ossory, in his Lordship's travelling-chaise and four. I spent a very gay week trying ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... drawn round the table scenting excitement. Archie, sitting with his back to the wall, was playing with headlong recklessness. For a while he continued to lose, and then suddenly and most unexpectedly he began to win. A most rash speculation resulted in his favour, and from that moment it seemed that his luck had turned. Once or twice he lost, but these occasions were far outbalanced by several ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the unremitting sprinklers on the strip of lawn to the wide gray sweep of sand. At that hour no one else was visible, and a new recklessness invaded his discomfort. "You see," he told her, "that bad luck of yours ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... them, something in the free, wild life they led, that appealed to him; something that struck at the primitive in his heart. He had heard tales of them; travelers returning from these regions had related sundry stories of these wild men of the plains; stories of their hardihood, of their recklessness, of their absolute fearlessness—clothing them with a glamor and romance that had deeply impressed the young man. His own life had ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... wholesome and regenerating change which a man undergoes when he "comes to himself." It is not only after periods of recklessness or infatuation, when has played the spendthrift or the fool, that a man comes to comes to himself. He comes to himself after experiences of which he alone may be aware: when he has left off being wholly preoccupied with his own powers and interests and with every petty plan ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson
... theories. In France especially his influence was profound and lasting. His wit and his lyric fire excused his morbidness and his sentimental posing as a waif, unfriended in a cold and treacherous world of women and men; and his genius made misanthropy and personal recklessness a fashion. The world took his posing seriously and his grievances to heart, sighed with him, copied his dress, tried to imitate his adventures, many of them imaginary, and accepted him as a perturbed, storm-tost spirit, representative of an ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... up with recesses that look like the dens of the smaller animals in a travelling menagerie, without the bars. Some half-dozen people are 'booking' brown-paper parcels, which one of the clerks flings into the aforesaid recesses with an air of recklessness which you, remembering the new carpet-bag you bought in the morning, feel considerably annoyed at; porters, looking like so many Atlases, keep rushing in and out, with large packages on their shoulders; and while you ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... signal triumph, so is the present age marked by a degeneracy in the public morals, which has kept pace with the progress of opinions of similar character and tendency. The rude multitude is taught that there is no grace but special grace, and this produces recklessness and indifference, since no efforts will avail if they are not to be partakers of these, to them, forbidden streams of the river of the water of life. Or, perhaps, this gloomy doctrine produces a sullen suspicion, vague and undefined, of the rectitude ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... years ago, a little recklessness. A little overheating of the blood. Perhaps after a dinner like this. The poison lies dormant; a snake asleep. Harms no one. Not himself; not another. Until—something here"—he tapped the thick black curls over the base of his brain. "All ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... anonymously very long. His departure over night leaked out. I was asked if it was true. The flight of Mrs. Lascelles was the next discovery; desperate deductions were drawn at once. She had jilted the unlucky youth and sent him in utter recklessness on his intentionally suicidal ascent. Nobody any longer expected to see him come down alive; so much I gathered from the fragments of conversation that reached my ears; and never was better occupation for a bad day than appeared to be afforded by the discussion of the supposititious tragedy ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... safety's sake, and defeats himself in sheer defiance by hitting throughout a match when his strokes are not working. He is greatly praised for this unwillingness to alter his game in defeat. Personally, I think he deserves condemnation rather than praise, for it seems recklessness rather than bravery to thus seek defeat that could ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... partly chose Donat because he was a man of great good-nature, but partly, too, because he was a man of the half- caste. For I believe all natives regard white blood as a kind of talisman against the powers of hell. In no other way can they explain the unpunished recklessness of Europeans. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fell readily into the plan, and agreed to assist in it. In this way a kind of a Beaumont-and-Fletcher partnership commenced in a series of humorous papers, which appeared in Tait's and Fraser's magazines from 1842 to 1844. In these papers, in which we ran a-tilt, with all the recklessness of youthful spirits, against such of the tastes or follies of the day as presented an opening for ridicule or mirth,—at the same time that we did not altogether lose sight of a purpose higher than mere amusement,—appeared ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... inspired by passion for race and native land. It is one tremendous shout of joy. These Cossacks are the veritable children of the steppes, and their vast passions, their Homeric laughter, their absolute recklessness in battle, are simply an expression of the boundless ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... Althorp (I think) moved that Burdett should be heard, and the Speaker said that 'Peel was in possession of the House to speak on that motion.' He made a very violent speech, attacking the Government for their incompetence, folly, and recklessness, and treated them with the utmost asperity and contempt. In the midst of his speech the guns announced the arrival of the King, and at each explosion the Government gave a loud cheer, and Peel was still speaking ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... enjoyment is perhaps an inherent consciousness that there is nothing so noble as forgetfulness of self. Therefore it is that we are struck by hearing of the exposure of life and limb to the utmost peril, in oblivion, or recklessness of personal safety, in ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fairly be expected, where sagacious appreciation of well-known facts controls the direction of effort, and preparation is proportioned to the difficulties to be encountered. Heedlessness of conditions, or recklessness of dangers, defeat effort everywhere, as well as in privateering; nor is even the chapter of unforeseen accident confined to military affairs. In 1812 the courses followed by the enemy's trade were well understood, as were also the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... His big, broad chest, stout, straight legs, strong arms and hands, were his admiration and constant pride. Cully was his champion and his ideal. The waif's recklessness and audacity were to him only evidences of so ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... contain the whole of that history. The Orientals have not attained the knowledge that Spirit—Man as such—is free; and because they do not know this, they are not free. They only know that one is free; but on this very account, the freedom of that one is only caprice; ferocity—brutal recklessness of passion, or a mildness and tameness of the desires, which is itself only an accident of nature—is mere caprice like the former. That one is therefore only a despot, not a free man. The consciousness of freedom first arose among the Greeks, and therefore ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... out to the camp by the Maharajah's Australian trainer in a brake-and-four. I had heard before of the recklessness and skill of Australian stage-coach drivers, but had had no previous personal experience of it. Frankly, it is not an experience I should care to repeat indefinitely. I have my own suspicions that that big Australian ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... man after mine own heart," he said smoothly. "Because I love thee and thy bold eyes and thy dare-devil recklessness, and would make a friend of thee. Why else? Now, then, to-morrow thou shalt bring the girl to me. I am minded for an hour's sport with the tiger-cat. My fingers itch for that lean throat of hers. After, I will give her to thee if it please thee—and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... there, discovered and betrayed. He had played upon her as upon a flexible young reed: that stop, her ambition, this, her romanticism, that, her vanity, the fourth, her gratitude, the fifth, her idealism, the sixth, her recklessness. And there was this added urge—she must stay here and drudge under the lash of "Momma's" tongue or she must accept this strange, this unimaginable offer. Again she opened her eyes wider and wider. The pupils swallowed up the misty gray. Her ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... advance up the Hudson, and in the strength of his artillery. By acting in detachments, his immediate force had been so seriously weakened that a forward movement on his part, without full assurance of active support from New York, savored far more of recklessness ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... before—pierced the interminable forests with his railroads, and made such a rapid stride in civilization as the world has never yet witnessed. What of all this could he have done on his own resources? Something, we must allow—because his spirit of enterprise is great, even to recklessness, and a young and forming country can afford to run risks which are impossible for an older state—but a very small part, unquestionably, without the use of British capital. We cannot, and we will not, believe that any considerable portion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... spent here meant trusting under fire a resolution attained only in a moment of something like exaltation. Such an experiment seemed the rashness of sheer irresponsibility, and to underestimate its danger was only recklessness. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... whistling is an interesting subject of study; whether we regard its aptitude for expressing personal independence, recklessness, and jollity; its antiquity—having begun no doubt with Adam—or its modes of production; as, when created grandly by the whistling gale, or exasperatingly by the locomotive, or gushingly by the lark, or sweetly by the little birds that "warble ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... might be extended to a commission in the Colonial Corps. If this could be carried into effect, it would certainly be attended with considerable advantages; it would procure respect for the British name, recall the savage from his life of recklessness, and put a final stop to those disgraceful scenes of profligacy which are so frequently witnessed in the streets of ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... was undoubtedly done for the convenience of employers as well as of courts; as for instance in the circuit of Dortmund, there were, in one year, 10,000 cases in which wages were garnisheed. (Annalen des N.D. Bundes und Zollvereins, 1869, 1071 ff.) But the recklessness of those workmen whose wages are below the average, might have been just as well guarded against without dragging those whose wages are above the average down to their level, if a distinction had been made between production-credit and consumption-credit, and ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... we would call love, but a weapon-like kinship. There was a tiny touch of irony in his manner towards her, contrasting sharply with Winifred's heavy, unleavened solicitude and care. The child flickered back to him with an answering little smile of irony and recklessness: an odd flippancy which made Winifred only the ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... the incident of the groan. On that subject I ask you to accept her first story, that it was a mere troubled exclamation in sleep, if it was really heard at all, which I may be permitted to doubt. For when a witness exhibits such recklessness and malice and wilful perversion of the truth in a case of this solemn character, I cannot willingly believe that any jury of Englishmen will consent to take away a ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... and shell dropped amongst us, but the march forward never ceased, never paused Paget and Hunter were with us now, and the lyddite guns seemed to drive all the fight out of the foe. They would not stand. Paget's artillerymen dashed forward, unlimbered, and loosed on the enemy with a recklessness of personal safety ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... He had not been to his chambers (which were only round the corner) since the hapless interview with Esther, wandering about in the streets and the clubs in a spirit compounded of outraged dignity, remorse and recklessness. All men must dine; and dinner at the Flamingo Club soothed his wounded soul and left only the recklessness, which is a sensation not lacking in agreeableness. Through the rosy mists of the Burgundy there began to surge up other faces than that cold pallid little face which ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... P. (anxious to disclaim any idea of recklessness). Just the time to pick 'em up cheap, if you know what you're about. And you see, we've had the drawing-room done up, and the wife wants something to fill up the space over her writing-table, between the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... nervousness, or be simply an outcome of his excessive energy. His jaw and whole cast of countenance is manly and resolute, but the eyes are the distinctive feature of his face. They are of the very darkest hazel, bright and eager, with a singular mixture of recklessness in their expression, and of something else which I have sometimes thought was more allied with horror than any other emotion. Generally the former predominated, but on occasions, and more particularly when he was thoughtfully inclined, ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exist that the fearful deed was committed by order of the American general. The act has been applauded as one emanating from stern patriotism and self-devotion, but it appears rather to have proceeded from sheer recklessness and bitter hatred to the English. The New Englanders were not destroying their own houses and property, but the houses and property of another people, and a rival colony, regardless of all the fearful consequences resulting ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... be, they had departed, leaving only the helpless dead behind. No doubt they would come again to remove the bodies, to seek refuge in this hidden hole. But for the moment I was there undiscovered, and must utilize each precious instant for discoveries and escape. Wild recklessness, a desire to break away from those grewsome surroundings, overcame all caution. Swiftly as I dared in the dense blackness I crept forward, feeling the smooth wall with eager fingers, my right hand still nervously gripping the revolver butt. Then I came to the door, similar to the ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... felt drawn in two different ways; for she had inherited something of her father's recklessness and love of pleasure, though her mother, who died when Clare was young, had been a shy Puritan. Clare was kept at school much longer than usual; and when she insisted on coming home she found herself ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... meant to turn back, though a recklessness of night and of meeting the King of Beaver grew upon her. Thus, without any reasonable excuse for her presence ...
— The King Of Beaver, and Beaver Lights - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... station, on this fearful tenure. Among them was Colonel Denham, the adventurous traveller in Africa. Very great mortality likewise prevailed among the merchants, military and civil officers, and soldiers. This was partly owing to the recklessness of their mode of life. The rich were in the habit of giving champagne-breakfasts at noon, and heavy and luxurious suppers at night. The continual neighborhood and near prospect of death made them gaily desperate; so that they grew familiar with him, and regarded him almost as a boon ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... as though she were about to strike him with the electric torch which she was carrying. With a great effort of self-control, however, she changed her mind and threw herself into his easy-chair with a little gesture of recklessness. Julian seated himself opposite to her. Although she kept her face as far as possible averted, he realised more than ever in those few moments that she was really an extraordinarily beautiful person. Her very attitude was full of an angry ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The red man fears our steel—'twas not so here; From the first shots, which drove our pickets in, Till daylight dawned they rushed upon our lines, And flung themselves upon our bayonet points In frenzied recklessness of bravery. ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... accumulation had become too great, were destroyed. The Control Section never made any inquiry, and neither the senders nor those to whom the despatches were addressed were ever informed.[30] Even important messages of neutral ambassadors in Rome and London fell under the ban. The recklessness of these censors, who ceased even to read what they destroyed, was such that they held up and made away with state orders transmitted by the great munitions factories, and one of these was constrained to close down because it ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... has an indifferent opinion of the early Protestants, especially on the point of veracity, brings forward this assertion of Dalaber as an illustration of what he considers their recklessness. It seems obvious, however, that a falsehood of this kind is something different in kind from what we commonly mean by unveracity, and has no affinity with it. I do not see my way to a conclusion; but I am satisfied that Dr. Maitland's strictures are unjust. If Garret was taken, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, while the reckless marry, the inferior members will tend to supplant ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... not stayed long enough in captivity to become really tame or timid, and this one fight had made a jackal of him, and he took care to let them know it. He was wildly excited, and daring enough at that moment for anything, and his daring and recklessness inspired the jackals with respect, and, in spite of a few dissenting voices, Jinks promptly took the leadership of the pack without more ado. It all came as natural to him as though he had been a wild, free thing all his ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... ever really get wives in that way, or was it done in recklessness and sport? It seems incredible that any woman could accept such ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... thoughtless depend on heaven to do their thinking, and many court bankruptcy while praying for solvency. But the improvidence of man does not disprove the providence of God. So far from encouraging sloth and recklessness this truth provokes to progress by the assurance of the cooeperation of infinite powers ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... he attends only to his weapons and his horses, preparing the means of future exploit. Or he engages with his comrades in games of dexterity, agility and strength; or in gambling games in which everything is put at hazard, with a recklessness seldom witnessed ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... would need circumspection, for all had already felt the change that had taken place in the temper of the King since Henry had resolutely undertaken that the wrong should be the right; and Ambrose could not but dread the effect of desperation on a man whose nature had in it a vein of impatient recklessness. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of hunger in the streets. To an "Empire of Opinion" this is an unmitigated evil (Pilgrimage iii. 256); and now, after some thirty-four years, there are signs that the suggestions of common sense are to be adopted. England has heard of the extraordinary recklessness and inconsequence of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... but all other sects as well. What his own ideas of religion were I never could make out. Universalism I fancied it was, but differing much from the theories of those evanescent preachers who sometimes flashed like meteors through the land, leaving doubt and recklessness in their path. The first truths of Christianity had been imparted to him, and these, mingling with his own innate ideas of veneration, formed his faith; as original, though more lofty in its aspirations, than the wild Indian's who tells of the flowery land of souls ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... a slowly gathering despair, which deepened to the blind recklessness that comes to those whose passions are their masters, when some blow smites but cannot subdue. Pale to his very lips, with the still white wrath, so much more terrible to witness than the fiercest ebullition of the ire that flames and feeds like a sudden fire, he waited till she ended, ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... tiger among tramps—the criminal tramp—despises the ordinary bum and the "gaycat." And they in turn fear him for his ruthlessness and recklessness. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... went to the door, and, in a minute or two, returned with a third party—an old man dressed like a gamekeeper, and carrying a short, stout fowling-piece in his hand. His eyes were wild and cruel, and his haggard features wore the impress of years of dissipation and recklessness. "Does he carry a purse, George?" said the new-comer, in a low whisper, as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... animallike fierceness, but immediately he was composed again. He got two candles, brought them and set them on a stand between the easels. Then he sat down and studied the paintings attentively. He laughed once with a dry recklessness. "This tells her story admirably. He is equal to his subject. To be hung in ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker
... mere adventures as contrasted to the observation and dissection of character and manners we find in the true "novel." Rather be it said that it is one in which the hidden soul is made patent under the touchstone of blood-stirring incidents, of hairbreadth risks, of recklessness or fierceness. There are soaring passions, secrets of the innermost heart, that can only be set free in desperate situations—and those situations are not found in the tenor in every-day, well-ordered ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... moment, she could see to no distance; and judging of him, feeling for herself, within that contracted circle of sensation—sure, from her knowledge of her cowardice, that he had done unwisely—she became swayed about like a castaway in soul, until her distinguishing of his mad recklessness in the challenge of a power greater than his own grew present with her as his personal cruelty to the woman who had flung off everything, flung herself on the tempestuous deeps, on his behalf. And here she was, left to float or founder! Alvan had gone. The man rageing over the room, abusing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fraught with fame and respect of the world which belongs to his order and ultimately obtains a residence in Indra's heaven. The hero, by not showing his back in fight and contending by every means in his power, in utter recklessness of life itself, at the van of battle, obtains the companionship of Indra. Wherever the hero encountered death in the midst of foes without displaying ignoble fear or cheerlessness, he has succeeded in earning regions ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... this, Ludwig Halberger had no fear of crossing over to the Chaco side, nor penetrating into its interior. He had often gone thither on botanising and hunting expeditions. But for this apparent recklessness he had a reason, which must needs here be given. Between the Chaco savages and the Paraguayan people there had been intervals of peace—tiempos de paz—during which occurred amicable intercourse; the Indians rowing over the river and entering the town to traffic off ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... foreknown by Omnipotence. Pope compared some of the speeches delivered in Heaven to the arguments of a "School-divine." The comparison does injustice to the scholastic philosophers. There was never one of them who could have walked into a metaphysical bramble-bush with the blind recklessness that Milton displays. ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... to Nelson by Parker The murder of the Czar Paul Armistice for fourteen weeks concluded with Denmark Qualified approval of the British Government The British fleet enters the Baltic Nelson's ardor and personal recklessness.—Anecdote Parker's sluggishness of action.—Nelson's impatience Russia intimates her purpose to abstain from hostilities Nelson's controversy with the Danish Commodore Fischer Parker ordered home, and Nelson left in command Dissatisfaction of the latter His longing ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... other's throat. With Kut-le was the advantage of perfect condition and superior strength. But DeWitt was fighting for his stolen mate. He was fighting like a cave man who has brooded for months on his revenge, and he was a terrible adversary. He had the sudden strength, the fearful recklessness of a madman. Now rolling on the edge of the terrace, now high against the crumbling pueblo, the savage and the civilized creature dragged each other back and forth. And Rhoda, awed by this display of passions, stood like ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... without knowing of its loss, without suspecting that the stone in the royal palace is but a sham and an imitation," replied the count. "It all came of the youth, the recklessness, the folly of the crown prince. Monsieur may have heard of his—his many wild ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... agree with you. I have never thoroughly approved of your engagement, because, as I told you at the time, I suspected you of recklessness in money matters. Even in accepting your invitation to-night I warned you, as you may remember, not to make the occasion an excuse for foolish extravagance. I come here, and find you in apartments furnished and decorated (as ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... its huge hatpins and ultra-fashionable height, was hideous. She exuded perfumes. Her silk stockings and suede shoes were the only reasonable things about her. The former she was displaying with some recklessness as she ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... branches, they could determine wisely upon the next step in their adventure. They were very knowing, these young men, for they had observed their elders. What they wanted to do, what was the end and aim of all this recklessness, was to dig a pit in this rich valley land close to the clump of trees, a pit say some ten feet in length by six feet in breadth and seven or eight feet in depth. That meant a gigantic labor. Gillian, of "The Toilers of the Sea," assigned to himself hardly a greater task. These were ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... of gold and jewels and raiment and spices. Come, what will you give me that I smother their wrath—I, Iddilcar, your friend, whom you speak ill of behind his back—whom you hate—-yes, both of you;" and his eyes flashed at Marcia with a strange recklessness that she had ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... another. But topographical knowledge per se does not necessarily make a good guide. Although "Don Teodoro," by something like instinct, always knew where he was, it did not take us long to discover that he had not judgment enough to guide a pack-train, and his fatuous recklessness caused us a good deal ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... dropped from Mr. Gleason's hand. A dark cloud gathered on his brow. A sharp pain darted through his heart. His son, his ingenuous, noble, high-minded boy had deceived him—betrayed his confidence, and wasted, with the recklessness of a spendthrift, money to which he had no ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... was recklessness or desperation. I had felt timid, and had shrunk from the task at first; but now that I felt I must go on, the dread had pretty well ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... established, and so far multiplied, as to allow departure from close breeding without change of characteristics, and not improbably the prohibition was even then based more upon moral reasons, or upon man's ignorance or recklessness regarding ...
— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale
... think it likely, about its strongest bonds of union. As for Weymouth and Donovan, they bore it all very lightly: indeed, they didn't seem to give the subject any great thought, farther than to exclaim occasionally that it was "rough on us," and a "tough one." Sailors always have a vein of recklessness in their mental processes. It comes from their manner of life,—its constant peril. They learn the ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... of all ways, by the kitchen; at another, excessive care for the body, and a devotion to personal beauty which implies ugliness of mind; at another time, injudiciously granted liberty will show itself in wanton recklessness and defiance of authority; sometimes there will be a reign of cruelty both in public and private, and the madness of the civil wars will come upon us, which destroy all that is holy and inviolable. Sometimes ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... to consider that independent piracy in the Mediterranean was in some sort an infringement of the rights of himself and his brother. One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who were participants in their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a different course of action; ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... nothing for them to see that they had eyes to see, or to hear that they had ears to hear. They could see that he either wrote consecutive fifths and octaves, or dodged them in a way opposed to all the rules, that he wrote false relations with the most outrageous recklessness, that his melodies were irregular and not measured out by the bar; but they could not feel, could not be expected to feel, the marvellous beauty of the results he got by his dodges, the marvellous expressiveness of his music. These old doctors may be forgiven, and, being long ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... party separated at Sacramento, Frank only remaining two days in that town. The wild scenes of dissipation and recklessness disgusted him; he looked with loathing upon the saloons where gambling went on from morning till night, broken only by an occasional fierce quarrel, followed in most cases by the sharp crack of a revolver, or by desperate encounters with bowie knives. Bad as things were, however, they were improving ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... for Pacific seas, and complete its tour of the world. It did nothing of the sort and kept moving toward the southernmost regions. So where was it bound? The pole? That was insanity. I was beginning to think that the captain's recklessness more than justified Ned ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... two years before with the only man she had ever loved, had renounced him in a fit of pique and passion on account of some scandal about a French dancing-girl; and from that hour she had assumed an air of recklessness: she had danced, flirted, talked, and carried on in a manner that delighted the multitude and shocked the prudes. Bath and Tunbridge Wells had rung with her sayings and doings; and finally she surrendered herself, not altogether unwillingly, to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... from the neighbourhood of Etampes with only my son, his tutor, and my physician in the carriage. On reaching a steep incline, where the brake should be put on, my servants imprudently neglected to do this, and I felt that we were burning the roadway in our descent. Such recklessness made me uneasy, when suddenly twelve horsemen rode headlong at us, and sought to stop the postilions. My six horses were new ones and very fresh; they galloped along at breakneck speed. Our pursuers fired at the coachman, but missed him, and the report of a pistol terrified ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... at all surprised when he heard his chum say this. He knew that the Kentucky boy was apt to be rash; and that meant more caution on his part, in order to counteract this spirit, that might border on recklessness. ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... the stockmen's hut Works with them, toils with them, side by side; As to his past — well, his lips are shut. 'Gentleman once,' say his mates with pride; And the wildest Cornstalk can ne'er outdo In feats of recklessness, Jim Carew. ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... commercial shrewdness, which gave him less the note of an artist than of a successful man of business. And where the old Lightmark, the Lightmark of the Cafe Grecco days, broke out at times, it was less pleasantly than of old, in a curious recklessness, a tendency, which jarred on Rainham's susceptible nerves, to dilate with a vanity which would have been vulgar, had it not been almost childish, on his lavish living, the magnitude of ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... it!" I cried with utter recklessness. "I know I was; Dunny told me so that evening at the St. Ives. Have as many cracks at me as you like. I was getting fat; I was beginning to think that the most important thing in the universe was dinner. Well, I'm not stodgy any longer, Esme Falconer; ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... with shoulder-straps, he had fought as bravely as ever at Munfordsville, and had led his platoon with skill and discretion. Though in an attack of cavalry he led his men into action, he was not again charged with recklessness, as he had been in the action at the Cross Roads, as the fight at the other railroad bridge was called. He conducted himself with dignity in his new position, and all of a sudden he seemed to forget that he was ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... driver was already within fifty feet of the machine. But he looked back over his shoulder and evidently thought better of his original purpose, for he turned to the left and raced down the hill toward the road at another point, leaping and striding with such recklessness that it seemed almost miraculous that he should escape a ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... "running," is the more violent and dashing mode of the two. Indeed, of all American wild sports, this is the wildest. Once among the buffalo, the hunter, unless long use has made him familiar with the situation, dashes forward in utter recklessness and self-abandonment. He thinks of nothing, cares for nothing, but the game; his mind is stimulated to the highest pitch, yet intensely concentrated on one object. In the midst of the flying herd, where the uproar and the dust are thickest, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... care about my age?" says Beatrice, with the recklessness of an impetuous woman bent upon having her own way. "Of course, I don't wish to do anything disreputable, or to make a scandal, but mamma is driving me to it by never allowing me to see you, and forbidding you to come to the ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... Missouri-Kansas was a focus of recklessness and daring for more than a whole generation. The children born there had an inheritance of indifference to death such as has been surpassed nowhere in our frontier unless that were in the bloody Southwest. The men of this country, ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... her fears, and little by little she grew composed. The desperate recklessness of her mood contrasted strangely with her morbid fear of an ambushed enemy. Gilbert suspected that it might be a temporary insanity, growing out of her remorse for having betrayed Sandy Flash. When she had been fed, and had smoked a pipe or two, she seemed quite to forget it, and was ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... the savages of the South Seas. And dirt is so far from being a thing which we admire, that our scientific men—than whom the world has never seen wiser—have proved to us, for a whole generation past, that dirt is the fertile cause of disease and drunkenness, misery and recklessness." ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... means a pleasant idea to Mr. Hawkehurst. In the old days he had been distinguished by all the Bohemian's recklessness, and even more than the Bohemian's generosity in his dealings with friend or companion. But now all was changed. He was no longer reckless. A certain result was demanded from him as the price of Charlotte ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... more rule to her who had defied them all? A spirit of recklessness seized her. After all, why not? She would never see him again. Like the operating-room, she would stand in the doorway and say a mute ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with pleasurable sensations. Many of the virtues practised by them, proceed rather from necessity or ignorance than from any ethical principle existing among them. The calm composure with which they meet death and their stoical indifference to bodily pain, are perhaps more attributable to recklessness of life and physical insensibility,[1] than to fortitude or magnanimity; consequently they do not much heighten the zest of reflection, in contemplating their character. The christian and the philanthropist, with ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... massed too thickly she would go in among them and thin them out with apparent recklessness, pulling them up by the roots and throwing them on the path, where John Gayther would come and find them and take them away. This heroic action on the part of the Mistress of the House pleased John very much. He respected the fearless spirit which did not hesitate to make ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... of the humours are in themselves amusing enough. But still there is something wanting, which is supplied in Volpone and The Alchemist. It has been asked whether that disregard of probability, which is one of Jonson's greatest faults, does not appear in the recklessness with which "The Fox" exposes himself to utter ruin, not so much to gratify any sensual desire or obtain any material advantage, as simply to indulge his combined hypocrisy and cynicism to the very utmost. The answer to this question will very much depend on ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... attired to represent a hot cross-bun. Then he was lost in the crowd, and the Colonel's eyes, in which for a moment a spark of wonder had burned, grew old and tired again. As he stood there alone, with youth and recklessness gamboling before him, he realized somberly that for him this revel was ended. How he would have enjoyed it once! But never, never again. His straight, soldierly back bent with weariness; he jerked back his ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... you one more—and then I quit," said Pete. For Pete began to realize that Brevoort's manner was slowly changing. Outwardly he was the same slow-speaking Texan, but his voice had taken on a curious inflection of recklessness which Pete attributed to the few but generous drinks of whiskey the Texan had taken. And Pete knew what whiskey could do to a man. He had learned enough about that when with the horse-trader. Moreover, Pete considered it a sort of weakness—to indulge in liquor when either ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... of a chicken, and in nearly terminating Rube's career, when he ran out of the house to ascertain the meaning of the firing. Once she was nearly drowned in the White River, while bathing with the Indian children after service at the Mission. She was never free from the result of childish recklessness. And this feature of her character grew with her, though her achievements ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... and then he began to doubt. Thrown back upon himself, deprived of the solace of her society, and released from a certain degree of restraint that she had always exercised upon him, he indulged more freely in drink, and entered with more recklessness upon the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... had been with Mrs. Fenton in the squalid days of six months before at the Bedfordbury coffee shop and she well knew how Lavinia was constantly getting into a scrape, not from viciousness, but from pure recklessness and love of excitement. Her mother's treatment of her "to cure her of her ways," as the lady ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... it. No deviation or improvement that we could suggest had any effect in conciliating him. He was opposed to railways generally, and to this in particular. 'Your scheme,' said he, 'is preposterous in the extreme. It is of so extravagant a character as to be positively absurd. Then look at the recklessness of your proceedings! You are proposing to cut up our estates in all directions for the purpose of making an unnecessary road. Do you think, for one moment, of the destruction of property involved by it? Why, gentlemen, if this sort of thing be permitted to go on ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... hardened recklessness? The clerks observed with bewildered surprise that Prosper had resumed his usual manner, that sort of icy haughtiness that kept people at a distance, and made him so unpopular in ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... some courtier reins his steed Beside the love-enkindling Gwendolaine, Whose wayward moods do vary as the winds,— Now wooing with her soft, seductive grace; Now fascinating with her stately pride; Anon, bewitching by her recklessness Of wilful daring in some wild caprice Which no one could anticipate or stay. How fair she is to-day! How beautiful! Her hunting-robe is bluer than the sky,— Matching one phase of her great, changeful eyes,— Clasped with twin falcons of unburnished ...
— Under King Constantine • Katrina Trask
... little doubtful, for he could see that the enemy, though apparently single-handed, was a man of powerful frame and apparently fearless even to recklessness. He had a strong suspicion that Bill Mosely was a coward and would afford him very little assistance in ...
— Ben's Nugget - A Boy's Search For Fortune • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... younglings just out of the nest, and everywhere are anxious parents hurrying about, seeking food to stuff hungry little mouths, or trying to keep too venturesome young folk out of danger. For Young Americans in feathers are wonderfully like Young Americans in lawn in self-confidence and recklessness. ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... of cool recklessness danced in the eyes of the young oilman. "I've a kinda notion they'll drap over and pay us a visit one o' these nights, say in the dark of the moon. If they do—well, we certainly aim ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... possible, it seems to me, to view castration as a method of negative eugenics with great enthusiasm. The recklessness, moreover, with which it is sometimes proposed to apply it by law—owing no doubt to the fact that it is not so obviously repulsive as the less radical procedure of abortion—ought to render us very cautious. We must, too, dismiss the idea of castration as a punishment; as such ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... introduction, some of which gave me entrance into the best Parisian circles, but these I generally neglected, preferring the gay fellows for whom I bore commendatory scrawls from my London associates. But probably my best recommendation was my pocket, still tolerably garnished, and the recklessness with which I scattered my cash. I felt myself on the high road to ruin, but my down-hill course had given such impetus to my crazy vehicle, that I despaired of checking it, and shut my eyes to the inevitable smash ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... The soft spring sunlight glinted on every tree and hillside. The "Balm of a Thousand Flowers"—true and not spurious—was sprinkled through the air, under the influence of which unseen nectar the birds became almost intoxicated with joy; pouring out their songs with a sort of spendthrift recklessness,—the very fish caught the infection, and flashed and sparkled in the blue water by shoals ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... deep, and no deeper. To do less would be insensible to progress, but to do more would be ignorant of history. We must not go back to the days of "the hollow army". We cannot repeat the mistakes made twice in this century when armistice was followed by recklessness and defense was purged as if the world was ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... last campaign was fought under the burden of an apparent official censure, galling to a man of Custer's impetuous nature, all the more so as he knew it to be unmerited and unjust. There is little doubt that this weight of wrong engendered a spirit of recklessness, foreign even to his daring nature, and led him to take risks he would not otherwise have accepted, simply because he felt the necessity for action and believed that through valor would come his speediest vindication. Had he been supported by those he relied upon ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... the expense, but for the risk incurred from dirty and infected trucks. I would recommend, if the cattle have a distance to travel in March, April, and May, and until they have been fourteen days at grass, that they should be trucked. But I have often been astonished at the recklessness of farmers buying cattle in a fair, going straight to the nearest station, and turning them into any dirty truck they can get—(when are trucks other than dirty?) The danger is great; despite the utmost circumspection, ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... she had married him very imprudently, but she has struggled gallantly with ill-health, and poverty, and Irish recklessness. I quite venerate her, and it seems these Goldsmiths had so far cast her off that they had no notion of the extent of ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... A sudden recklessness had caught us all, it seemed, the old spirit of lawless man breaking the leash of custom. I shared it—with exultation I knew I shared it with these others. The lust of youth for adventure held us all, and the years ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... and her Parliament insisted on maintaining intact the institution of slavery. They thereby aroused an enemy more terrible than yellow fever, the negro. France profited by the blunder; but she rushed blindly forward, using the black man with a recklessness which gave him the mastery. On the other hand, if Pitt and Wilberforce had succeeded in carrying out their programme in the years 1790-2, the incendiary devices of Brissot and Victor Hugues would have come to nought. In that case the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose |
