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Wilful

adjective
1.
Done by design.  Synonym: willful.  "Willful disobedience"
2.
Habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition.  Synonyms: froward, headstrong, self-willed, willful.



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"Wilful" Quotes from Famous Books



... have need to come to God as the Publican did; every one, if he does but search his heart, and watch his conduct, and try to do his duty, will find himself to be full of sins which provoke God's wrath. I do not mean to say that all men are equally sinners; some are wilful sinners, and of them there is no hope, till they repent; others sin, but they try to avoid sinning, pray to God to make them better, and come to Church to be made better; but all men are quite sinners enough to make it their duty to behave as the Publican. Every one ought ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... be something, perhaps, to him if he saw you," replied the guttural voice of Von Glauben. "It is safer to be out of his way. You are a very wilful princess this afternoon! You must remember your ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... wrong place, an embellishment carried to excess, spoilt the effect; or again a loud climax with no due crescendo, an outburst of sound like water tumbling through a suddenly opened sluice, showed complete and wilful neglect of the laws ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... way of teaching me not only the gentlemanly art of dealing with menials, as he had observed it, but, on his part, as he stood stiff and grave, the proper attitude of a servant towards his master. In these days, long distant from the first strange years of my life, I am glad that I was not wilful with him—glad that I did not obstinately resist the folly and boredom of the thing, as I was inclined to do. But, indeed, it must not be counted to me for virtue; for my uncle had a ready hand, though three ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... well! Inevitably, at that moment She appears, carrying a bottle with horrible yellow stuff floating in it—Castor Oil! Wilful and unfeeling, she holds me between her strong knees, opens ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette

... Mr. Geoffrey!" cried Mrs. Trapes. "Hermy needs some one strong enough to master her now an' then, she is that wilful, she is so!" ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol

... hundred times on the point of trying to seize his kingdom of heaven by violence, of throwing himself upon her with a tempest shock of reproach and appeal. But some secret instinct restrained him. She was wilful, she was capricious; she had a real and powerful distraction in her art. He must be patient and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... been heard to complain that cows and trees, and woodmen and farms, and sheep and wains, and hay and turnips, do not necessarily suggest the highest happiness, and that it is not always dignified for an aspiring Poet to be led about helpless through the byeways of sense by those wilful, wanton playfellows, his rhymes. The two factions may be left to fight out their quarrel over the present example, which, by the way, is not taken from the collected edition of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various

... her duty as a member of the Roman Church. The princes of the League would then appear the sole authors of those evils, which the continuance of the war would unavoidably bring upon the Roman Catholics of Germany; they alone, by their wilful and obstinate adherence to the Emperor, would frustrate the measures employed for their protection, involve the church in ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... Key, p. 167. "Smalness; littleness, minuteness, weakness."—Rhyming Dict. "Gall-less, a. free from gall or bitterness."—Webster's Dict. "Talness; height of stature, upright length with comparative slenderness."—See Johnson et al. "Wilful; stubborn, contumacious, perverse, inflexible."—Id. "He guided them by the skilfulness of his hands."—Psal. lxxviii, 72. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."—Murray's Key, p. 172. "What is now, is but an amasment of imaginary ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... said Mrs. Ingleton tartly, "that Sylvia is a most wilful and perverse girl, and I think you are very unwise to put up with her whims. I should be ashamed to have a girl of that age ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... really a tremendous personality—dramatic, wilful, generous, whimsical, at times almost cruel in pressing his own conviction upon others, and then again tender, affectionate, emotional, always imaginative, unusual and wide-visioned in his views. He is well worth Boswellizing, but I am urging ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... became exceedingly jealous of their youngest brother, and, conspiring against him and their mother, made them live in a separate house, and took possession of the estate. Owing to overindulgence, the youngest prince had become very wilful. He never listened to any one, not even to his mother, but had his own way in everything. One day he went with his mother to bathe in the river. A large boat was riding there at anchor. None of the boatmen were in it. The prince went into the boat, and told his mother to come ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... as he, and had a wife as peevish and purse-proud as the other: and this law-suit begot higher oppositions, and actionable words, and more vexations and lawsuits; for you must remember that both were rich, and must therefore have their wills. Well! this wilful, purse-proud law-suit lasted during the life of the first husband; after which his wife vext and chid, and chid and vext, till she also chid and vext herself into her grave: and so the wealth of these poor rich people was curst into a punishment, because they wanted meek and thankful hearts; ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... delay, I can plead scruples of conscience, and even pretend prior obligation; for, my dear, I have give Mr. Lovelace room to hope (as you will see in one of my letters in your hands) that I will be no other man's while he is single, and gives me not wilful and premeditated cause of offence against him; and this in order to rein-in his resentment on the declared animosity of my brother and uncles to him. And as I shall appeal, or refer my scruples on this head, to the good Dr. Lewen, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... generic nature and its specific varieties. It may be defined, generally, as that state of mind which involves either the denial or the doubt of the existence and government of God as an all-perfect Being, distinct from the created universe; or which leads to the habitual forgetfulness and wilful neglect of His claims as our Creator, Preserver, and Lord. This state of mind, whether evinced by words or by actions, contains in it the essence of Atheism, and it is recognized in Scripture, in each of its two aspects, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... ourselves, or childless days Resolved, as thou proposest; so our foe Shal 'scape his punishment ordained, and we Instead shall double ours upon our heads. No more be mentioned then of violence Against ourselves; and wilful barrenness, That cuts us off from hope; and savours only Rancour and pride, impatience and despite, Reluctance against God and his just yoke Laid on our necks. Remember with what mild And gracious temper he both heard, and judged, Without ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton

... to prevent serious misconduct. Had they been burdened with the constant acknowledgment of superior authority which becomes a second nature to the regular soldier, disgust and discontent might have taken the place of high spirit and good-will. But at the same time wilful misbehaviour was severely checked. Neglect of duty and insubordination were crimes which Jackson never forgave, and deliberate disobedience was in his eyes as unmanly an offence as cowardice. He knew when to be firm as well ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... assigned by the legislature for enacting a law which punished the wilful murder of a human being by a fine, was that 'CRUELTY is HIGHLY UNBECOMING,' and 'ODIOUS.' It was doubtless the same reason that induced the legislature in 1821, to make a show of giving more protection to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... I did mean that I help her; but she would have no help in her work that she did say to be her glad right; but bade me that I to mine own work to be her dear protector, as she did call me. And I to lift that Wilful One into mine arms, a moment, and to give her a very loving hug, and for that time to have no fear that I harm her, because that I was freed of the hardness of the armour about me, ...
— The Night Land • William Hope Hodgson

... a poacher, his refusals were admitted. Rushbrook had played his game well in admitting the gun and bag to be his property, as it was of service to him, and no harm to Joey. After summing up the whole evidence, the coroner addressed the jury, and they returned a unanimous verdict of Wilful Murder against Joseph Rushbrook the younger; and the magistrates directed the sum of 200 pounds to be offered for our ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat

... possessed at will. As Davenport wasn't a 'subject' of this sort by caprice of nature, and as, even if he had been, he couldn't have chosen his new identity to suit himself, or ensured its permanency, he had to resort to the deliberate exercise of imagination and wilful self-deception I have described. Now even in those cases of dual personality, though there is doubtless some change in facial expression, there is not an actual physical transformation such as Davenport's purpose required. As he had to use deliberate means ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... know," replied Elisabeth; "I fancy it depends a good deal upon whom I am talking to. I find as a rule it is a good plan to let a weak man think you are obedient, and a strong man think you are wilful, if you want men to ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

... and unties me; * Till with her honey dew of inner lip she plies me: I brought the chess board and my liefest lover plays me * With white and black,[FN197] but black cum white ne'er satisfies me: 'Twas as if King for Castle I were fain to place me * Till wilful loss of game atwixt two queens surprise me: And if I seek to read intent in eyes that eye me * Oh man! that glance askance with ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... or the fruits of this wilful murder. Indeed, sins carry in them not only a curse with respect to eternity, but are also the cause of all the miseries of this life. "God turneth—a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... laughed again, with that wilful sound in the laugh which he remembered. He wondered how she was going to get on at the Hoopers. Mrs. Hooper's idiosyncrasies were very generally known. He himself had always given both Mrs. Hooper and her eldest daughter a wide berth in the ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... am selfish and fretful and wilful," she said, with a sigh. "I was only a spoiled child of nineteen when you took me by storm, body and soul. You remember, on our wedding day, when I looked up into your handsome face and the sense of responsibility and joy crushed me ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon

... "A wilful man must have his way, Mr. Sedgwick," he nodded to me, then whispered in the ear of George Fleming, who at once left ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... over the country girl striving hard to educate herself and to find a place in the world. But much had changed since then, and Dyce was beginning to feel that it would not do to reckon on any dulness, or wilful blindness, in Constance with regard to himself, his sayings and doings. Their talk yesterday had, he flattered himself, terminated in his favour; chiefly, because of his attitude of entire frankness, a compliment to the girl. That he had been, in ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... separated from knowledge and learning, doth not only hurt shooting, but the most weighty things in the world beside. And, therefore, I marvel much at those people which be the maintainers of uses without knowledge, having no other word in their mouth but this use, use, custom, custom. Such men, more wilful than wise, beside other discommodities, take all place and occasion from all amendment. And this I speak generally ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... adaptation; a style suitable to the subject, as plagiarism; occasional inspiration he calls a lie; translation, a forgery; and the whole, if not a "magnificent mystification," then, in Procurator-Fiscal phrase, a "wilful falsehood, fraud, and imposition." But all this, without proof—and nothing like proof is ever advanced—may be said in an hour, and the argument would remain as it is. Such, in point of fact, has been the sum total of assault, reiterated by every new antagonist with increasing boldness for a century, ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various

... Nevertheless at the north gate I got a rare fright; for, though it wanted a full half-hour of sunset, the porter was in the act of closing it. Seeing us, he waited grumbling until we came up, and then muttered, in answer to my remonstrance, something about queer times and wilful people having their way. I took little notice of what he said, however, being anxious only to get through the gate and leave as few traces of our passage as ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... those who did not see with his eyes. Ho rejected—we trust in polite terms—the offer of "the Thunderer." "In other respects also," says our main authority, "he was impracticable, unmalleable, and as independent and wilful as if he were the heir to a peerage. He had created no 'public' of his own; the public which existed could not understand his writings and would not buy them; and thus it was that in Cheyne Row he was more neglected than he had been in Scotland." Welcome ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... of course, your own mistress, and much as we both must grieve should anything separate you from us, we have no power to prevent you from taking steps which may lead to such a separation. If you are so wilful as to reject the counsel of your friends, you must be allowed to cater for yourself. But, Eleanor, I may at any rate ask you this. Is it worth your while to break away from all those you have loved—from all who love you—for the sake of ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... last few months of misunderstandings and of loneliness, she realised that she had never ceased to love him; that deep down in her heart she had always vaguely felt that his foolish inanities, his empty laugh, his lazy nonchalance were nothing but a mask; that the real man, strong, passionate, wilful, was there still—the man she had loved, whose intensity had fascinated her, whose personality attracted her, since she always felt that behind his apparently slow wits there was a certain something, which he kept hidden from all the world, and most ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... my own ideas concerning life. One of them is to go through it without giving pain to others. To me, the only real wickedness is the wilful infliction of unhappiness. That covers all guilt.... Other matters seem so trivial in comparison—I mean the forms and observances—the formalism of sect and creed.... To me they mean nothing—these petty laws designed ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... Squire had moved to a log close beside her. The March sun was pouring down upon them, and there was a robin singing, quite undisturbed by their presence, in a holly-bush near. The Squire's wilful countenance had never seemed to Elizabeth more full of an uncanny and even threatening energy. Involuntarily she withdrew ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Cornelia," she said; "I am but a wilful girl with many things to learn. Perhaps you yourself know that purple robes do ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... Joan of Acre, a wilful, lively girl, was wedded when very young to her father's turbulent friend, Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester; Margaret was married, at fifteen, to the Duke of Brabant; and Mary was devoted to the cloister. She became a nun of Fontevraud at the priory Ambresbury, in accordance ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... my troth, not long: For we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteene Gentlewomen that liue honestly by the pricke of their Needles, but it will bee thought we keepe a Bawdy-house straight. O welliday Lady, if he be not hewne now, we shall see wilful adultery ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... change away his Bible for a pair of shoes, made Mrs. King doubly concerned that he should be a good deal thrown in Harold's way. There are many people who neglect their Bibles, and do not read them; but this may be from thoughtlessness or press of care, and is not like the wilful breaking with good, that it is to part with the Holy Scripture, save under the most dire necessity; and Dick was far from being in real want, nor was he ignorant, like Mr. Cope's poor Jem, for he had been to school, and could read well; but he was one of those many lads, who, ...
— Friarswood Post-Office • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Dorothy before her grandmother had a chance to do so, and perhaps Miss Dorothy would understand that she had not meant to do wrong in the first place, and that what came after was carelessness and not wilful wickedness. She had been ordered not to leave her room, and this she need not do to carry out her plan. So she softly crossed the floor and timidly knocked at the door between Miss Dorothy's room and her own. It was opened ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard

... that goodness which has perfected the divine plan, by appointing one wide and comprehensive means of salvation: a salvation which all are invited to partake; by a means which all are capable of using; which nothing but voluntary blindness can prevent our comprehending, and nothing but wilful error can ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... with this Society, and the fact that Their life circulates through it, and that They have sacrificed Themselves in order that it may live. By that sacrifice they cannot avoid sharing the karma that you and I are making by every careless thought, by every foolish action, by every wilful or even not wilful ignorance, the burden that They have taken out of love for man and for his helping. And I have often thought, when I have been trying dimly to understand the mysteries of this divine compassion, and the greatness of the love and of ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... as Wayne Wayland, her father, could wish. The old man's domain was greater than that of many princes, and his power more absolute. His only daughter he spoiled as thoroughly as he ruled his part of the financial world, and wilful Mildred, once she had taken an interest in the young college man so evidently ready to be numbered among her lovers, did not pause half way, but made her preference patent to all, and opened to him a realm of dazzling possibilities. He well remembered ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... complete. There was one influence she feared for the child and still secretly combated; that was my lord's; and half unconsciously, half in a wilful blindness, she continued to undermine her husband with his son. As long as Archie remained silent, she did so ruthlessly, with a single eye to heaven and the child's salvation; but the day came when Archie spoke. It was 1801, and Archie was seven, and beyond his years for curiosity and logic, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... restrains our wilful powers. A will must rule above the will of ours, Not following what our vain desires do woo, For virtue's sake, but ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various

... administrative body and to the people's general distrust of their chosen representatives. The initiative, referendum, recall, and the withholding of important subjects from the legislature's power, are among the devices intended to free the people from the machinations of their wilful representatives. ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth

... did Bob, both of us declaring that we could not possibly consent to her being troubled with the cooking or anything else; but she drew herself up in a pretty wilful way and said, "Not let me do the cooking? Indeed, but you must; I insist on it. Why, it is woman's peculiar province to attend to the cooking always. Men never understand how to cook properly; they have neither tact nor patience for ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... head, and said that all the shouting in the world would do no good with such a wilful little thing. But yet he could not himself help calling out from time to time in the darkness: "Undine! ah, sweet Undine! I entreat ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... never came, because he was what the old man had made him—headstrong, and wilful, and obstinate. Billy had been thoroughly spoiled. The old man had nurtured his pride, had applauded it as a mark of proper spirit; and now it was this same pride that had robbed him of the one thing he loved in ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell

... gained as reports of disaster and wilful acts followed with increasing rapidity. The sinking of American vessels disclosed a ruthlessness of method that was gravely condemned in President Wilson's message of armed-neutrality, only to be followed by acts of more wilful import—finally evoking the proclamation, ...
— The Delta of the Triple Elevens - The History of Battery D, 311th Field Artillery US Army, - American Expeditionary Forces • William Elmer Bachman

... not, my dear father," replied Amy, kissing him. "Your last command I obey with pleasure. And oh! if I have sometimes been a wilful girl, forgive me ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... misapprehension on the part of his accusers, or the witnesses against him, who might be his bitterest enemies; since they were never revealed to nor confronted with the prisoner, nor subjected to a cross-examination, which can best expose error or wilful collusion in the evidence. [44] Even the poor forms of justice, recognized in this court, might be readily dispensed with; as its proceedings were impenetrably shrouded from the public eye, by the appalling oath of secrecy imposed on all, whether functionaries, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... larger salaries. Even the city's need is not yet fully met. The demand is greater than the supply in both places but still greater in the country. For this neglect of country churches, a neglect by no means wilful, what are the results? ...
— The Defects of the Negro Church - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 10 • Orishatukeh Faduma

... did not love religion.' She used a still more remarkable expression: 'If I must date my conversion from my first wish and trial to be holy, I may go back to infancy; if I am to postpone it till after my last wilful sin, it is scarcely yet begun.' The irregular pleasures of her parents' life were deeply distasteful to her, as such were to many young persons in those days of the wide revival of Conscience, and when my grandfather, by his reckless expenditure, which he never checked till ruin was ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... creditable, he still presented before the world a fairly clean record, and whatever minor blemishes may have spotted his good name, these were obscured by the almost dazzling lustre of his soldierly career. But no sooner was he installed in his new position at Philadelphia than he began to show, with wilful perversity, those evil impulses which thus far had remained relatively latent. Almost as soon as he entered the town he disclosed to its citizens the most offensive traits of arrogance and tyranny. But this was not all. Not merely was he accused on every side of such ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... all hands.... But though, from these circumstances, the city-beauty had become as wilful, as capricious, and as affected, as unlimited indulgence seldom fails to render those to whom it is extended; and although she exhibited upon many occasions that affectation of extreme shyness, silence, ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various

... from all these limitations we have, unhappily, to deal with absolute coldblooded lying on the part of wicked or mischievous intelligences. Everyone who has investigated the matter has, I suppose, met with examples of wilful deception, which occasionally are mixed up with good and true communications. It was of such messages, no doubt, that the Apostle wrote when he said: "Beloved, believe, not every spirit, but try the spirits whether ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... ought to observe, that I am far from accusing you of an intentional fault, or a wilful misrepresentation; though in order to suppose you clear from such a fault, I must charitably suppose that the perturbations of your mind were such that you did not give my letter a careful examination. I proved by plain and ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... cistus, to allow the pasturage to grow for their flocks. But though this is not legal before the eighth of September, when the intense heat of the summer has passed away, and the periodical autumnal rains are necessary for the young herbage, the law is broken, and not only accidental but wilful conflagrations have been the destruction of numerous forests. What with this waste, the injury done to the growing timber by the contractors, and the indolence of the natives, the noble forests of Sardinia ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... find out that everything else disappoints, and to come back to him, the fountain of all wholesome pleasure, the well-spring of all life fit for a man to live. When the fool finds out his folly; when the wilful man gives up his wilfulness; when the rebel submits himself to law; when the son comes back to his father's house—there is no sternness, no peevishness, no up-braiding, no pride, no revenge; but the everlasting and boundless love of God wells ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... the Impropriety of the Word, this is to charge the above Writers with wilful and direct Forgeries. Llwyd and Powel were Gentlemen of fair and unblemished Characters, and good Scholars. Mr. Llwyd's Writings shew him to have been a Man of Learning and Judgment; and Dr. Powel was the same; and was well acquainted ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams

... said. "It sounds like something that a barbarian, hating the delicate complexities and the restraints of a nobler life, might have said. From you it strikes me as wilful bad taste. . . . I have often wondered at your tastes. You have always liked extreme opinions, exotic costumes, lawless characters, romantic ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... his coming mean? What madness prompted this stealth and secrecy? If innocent of wilful desertion, his proper course was to have reported without delay to the military authorities at San Francisco and told the cause of his disappearance or detention. But he had evidently done nothing of the kind. They would surely have heard of ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King

... is now receiving a curious illustration in this colony of French origin. Rococo—antiquated, old-fashioned—would seem to have become rococo itself; and in its place the negroes have adopted the word entete, wilful, headstrong, to express, as it were, the persistence of a person in retaining anything that has gone out of fashion. This term was first applied to white hats; and the wearers of such have been assailed from every corner of the streets with the cry of "Entete chapeau!" It was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various

... this have happened arbitrarily, capriciously, mysteriously, without some gross and positive violation of social law, some wilful and therefore wicked departure from the known principles of science? Every random conjecture as to the causes of the prevailing distress implies an answer to the question, and it need not be repeated. It is more important to inquire what those violations and departures have been, than to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... compulsory education is settled so far as Nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh and wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedience—incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley

... of the slave code can be shown by comparison of the capital crimes for white persons at the same time. These were four in number, (1) murder, (2) carnal abuse of a female under ten years of age, (3) wilful burning of the penitentiary and (4) being an accessory to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... children. The pride and honour of parents among them depend upon the number of their family. Another reason why barrenness is disgraceful, is, that it is considered to be brought on by incontinence or wilful abortions. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son's gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the body. Under these circumstances the young man was instantly arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful murder' having been returned at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out before the coroner ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... lips with such wilful force that he read the reply on her face, though her eyes were down and by intense resolution she restrained the denial. He was close to her, speaking quickly under the pressure of ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... With its exhilarating flow, And I confess that now-a-days I prefer sensible Bordeaux. To cope with Ay no more I dare, For Ay is like a mistress fair, Seductive, animated, bright, But wilful, frivolous, and light. But thou, Bordeaux, art like the friend Who in the agony of grief Is ever ready with relief, Assistance ever will extend, Or quietly partake our woe. All hail! ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... Phdrus; but lay not this unction to your old prejudices, which you must now prepare to part with forever, that it is any spirit of wilful paradox which is now speaking; for get rid of Mr. Ricardo, if you can, but you will not, therefore, get rid of this paradox. On any other theory of value whatsoever, it will still continue to be an irresistible ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... spirits, and weakened him; and he confessed it did, but said, his "life could not be better spent, than in the service of his Master Jesus, who had done and suffered so much for him. But," said he, "I will not be wilful; for though my spirit be willing, yet I find my flesh is weak; and therefore Mr. Bostock shall be appointed to read prayers for me to-morrow; and I will now be only a hearer of them, till this mortal shall put on immortality." ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... after dark by Mrs. Manners with Jim, the groom. About once in the week Mr. and Mrs. Manners would bring Dorothy over for dinner or tea at the Hall. She grew quickly—so quickly that I scarce realized—into a tall slip of a girl, who could be wilful and cruel, laughing or forgiving, shy or impudent, in a breath. She had as many moods as the sea. I have heard her entertain Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Bordley and the ladies, and my grandfather, by the hour, while I sat by silent and miserable, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... own wilful heart. She had seen the world bow to every caprice of hers, but she never had one principle to guide her, except her own pleasure. She was now like a goddess of earth, fallen in an effort to reconcile impossibilities in human hearts, and became ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... of confidantes," said Richard, "I want my cousin Ada to understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften the course I take, even though you ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... you that Mr Spinney's gone—poor old man! There must be a coroner's inquest. Now, it would be as well if you were not to be found, for the verdict will be 'Wilful Murder!'" ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... stealth, Sorrowing for our quiet caves. Doth it calm our wistful pining That the chains we hate are shining? Boast we beauty's gauds to be? Can the state such bondage shares, Thoughtless liking, loveless cares, Sudden angers, wilful airs, Sooth us ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various

... to date only," Tom retorted. "You've been discharged for wilful and serious neglect of duty, and you're not entitled to pay for ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... the hazardous situations I was sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, free from any wilful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been expected from my want of religion. I say wilful because the instances I have mentioned had something of necessity in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others. I had therefore a tolerable character to begin the world with; I valued it properly, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... rain; and his daughters still persisting in their resolution not to admit his followers, he called for his horses, and chose rather to encounter the utmost fury of the storm abroad, than stay under the same roof with these ungrateful daughters: and they, saying that the injuries which wilful men procure to themselves are their just punishment, suffered him to go in that condition and shut their doors ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... West now put forward candidates—two of them, Clay and Jackson. Clay was a Kentuckian, of Virginian birth and breeding, in whom were mingled the leading characteristics of both his native and his adopted section. He was "impetuous, wilful, high-spirited, daring, jealous, but, withal, a lovable man." For a decade he had been the most conspicuous figure in the national House of Representatives. He had raised the speakership to a high level of importance and through its power had ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg

... departments of the government of France has not since received the acknowledgement which it so highly merits. This has not been owing to an improper appreciation of its value, but to circumstances which I trust are sufficient to exculpate the government of this state from the charge of wilful neglect. ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various

... that there are also feminine vices. Woman is the spoilt child of the age. No one tells her of her faults. The World with its thousand voices flatters her. Sulks, bad temper, and pig-headed obstinacy are translated as 'pretty Fanny's wilful ways.' Cowardice, contemptible in man or woman, she is encouraged to cultivate as a charm. Incompetence to pack her own bag or find her own way across a square and round a corner is deemed an attraction. Abnormal ignorance and dense stupidity ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome

... necessary to appoint a select committee "to inquire as to the best means of preventing the destruction of the lives of infants put out to nurse for hire by their parents." "Improper and insufficient food," said the committee, "opiates, drugs, crowded rooms, bad air, want of cleanliness, and wilful neglect are sure to be followed in a few months by diarrhoea, convulsions and wasting away." These unfortunate children were nearly all illegitimate, and the mere fact of their being hand-nursed, and not breast-nursed, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... and a still greater pleasure in telling them to myself over and over again. Surely then, he was more to me than all those other people who came and went and left not a trace of their personality inscribed upon my mind or heart. In spite of my wilful protestations, and avowals of indifference, I must have been living all along in the fetters of happy slavery, else, why so many fond recollections of a past that was, after all, but the interesting progress of a ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... passing, hoarsely sings. In very terror I at morn awake, Upon the verge of bitter weeping, To see the day of disappointment break, To no one hope of mine—not one—its promise keeping:— That even each joy's presentiment With wilful cavil would diminish, With grinning masks of life prevent My mind its fairest work to finish! Then, too, when night descends, how anxiously Upon my couch of sleep I lay me: There, also, comes no rest to me, But some wild dream is sent to fray ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... if all I suspect be true, and this is as proper a moment as another to place that matter also before your honoured uncle. Come forward, Sir Wycherly—I have understood you to say, this minute, in my ear, that you hold the pledge of this wilful girl to become your wife, should she ever be an orphan. An orphan she is, and has been since the first hour of ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a strict charge never to visit the house again. "For," said Mrs. Speedgo, "no servant who behaves as you have done, shall ever enter my doors again, or eat another mouthful in my house." Molly had no desire so suddenly to quit her place; but as her conscience perfectly acquitted her of any wilful crime, after receiving her wages, respectfully wishing all the family their health, and taking a friendly leave of her fellow-servants, she left the house, and soon engaged herself as dairy-maid in a farmer's family, about three miles off; in which place she behaved so ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner

... result of this habit of tight lacing, is known partly to the medical men, who lift up their voices in vain, and known fully to Him who will not interfere with the least of His own physical laws to save human beings from the consequences of their own wilful folly. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... ownership that he now found fault with his idol. Had any one else objected to the doctor's afternoon rest he would have found reason and excuse enough; but in his own heart he was puzzled. Such indifference to the appearances, such wilful disregard of "business" could hardly, he thought, be real; yet, for an imitation, it was remarkably well done. Bubble ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... wilful murder of a young man named Victor Franklin," answered Dory. "His body was recovered from Longthorp Tarn this afternoon. You had better say nothing. Also with the theft of certain papers known to have been in ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... from my hands.' Lord Grey did not understand the man he was dealing with. The result was that in August 1582 he was abruptly deposed from his dignity as Lord Deputy in Ireland. But we see that Raleigh could be exceedingly antipathetic to any man who crossed his path. That it was wilful arrogance, and not inability to please, is proved by the fact that he seems to have contrived to reconcile not Leicester only but even Hatton, Elizabeth's dear 'Pecora Campi,' to his ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... so often indicated the exact locality of the stone, and had described its dire influence with such sincerity that, when it twinkled, a resolution which had been long in the back of my mind became wilful and imperative. He said that it was "on top, along oo-nang-mugil"—a gloomy place among rocks—and that the old men of the country had been wont to say that this particular "oo-nang-mugil" was the favourite resort of the "debil-debil," the to whose arrogance and awful ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... my youngest blossom and my fairest, But my most wilful too—you'll pluck her not Without some aid ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... gates of heaven: its floor is littered with his broken fancies. He runs wild over the fields of ether. He chases the rolling world. He gets between the feet of the horses of the sun. He stands in the lap of patient Nature, and twines her loosened tresses after a hundred wilful fashions, to see how she will look ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... have been honorably distinguished for their intellectual attainments and moral character, must have possessed elements of truth and moral worth. A contemptuous treatment of monasticism implies either an ignorance of its real history or a wilful disregard of the deep significance of ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... excusable for being the instruments of injurious disgrace and damage to their neighbours. But they greatly mistake therein; for as this practice commonly doth arise from the same wicked principles, at least in some degree, and produceth altogether the like mischievous effects, as the wilful devising and conveying slander: so it no less thwarteth the rules of duty, the laws of equity; God hath prohibited it, and reason doth condemn it. "Thou shalt not," saith God in the Law, "go up and down as a tale-bearer among thy people:" as a talebearer (as Rachil, that is), as a merchant ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... account. Any one disposed to retaliate upon our author for his habitual reticence would find in these volumes, ready made for his purpose, a large assortment of convenient phrases ranging from 'discreet reserve' to 'wilful and deliberate evasion.' I do not intend to yield to this temptation. But the reader will have drawn his own conclusions from this recklessness of assault in one whose own armour is ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot

... and shoots men through the head, as I am told he did, in the name of Christ, will owe his freedom to my Jewish charity? He will burn the Temple first. This young man has the sword of Gideon. You know little of the world, Eva, and nothing of young Englishmen. There is not a race so proud, so wilful, so rash, and so obstinate. They live in a misty clime, on raw meats, and wines of fire. They laugh at their fathers, and never say a prayer. They pass their days in the chase, gaming, and all violent courses. They ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... he has vanquished all impediment, And in the wilful mood of his own daughter Shall a new struggle rise for him? Child! child! As yet thou hast seen thy father's smiles alone; The eye of his rage thou hast not seen. Dear child, I will not frighten thee. To that extreme, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... haunted by a ghost known as the "White Lady," and the traditional account of the reason for this haunting is briefly as follows: Shortly after the erection of the fort, a Colonel Warrender, a severe disciplinarian, was appointed its governor. He had a daughter, who bore the quaint Christian name of "Wilful"; she became engaged to a Sir Trevor Ashurst, and subsequently married him. On the evening of their wedding-day the bride and bridegroom were walking on the battlements, when she espied some flowers growing on the rocks beneath. She expressed a wish for them, and a sentry posted close ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour

... into the jaundice, By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio,— I love thee, and it is my love that speaks; There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond; And do a wilful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who should say, I am Sir Oracle, And, when I ope my lips, let no dog bark! O, my Antonio, I do know of these, That therefore ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce

... the duty of every sincere admirer after truth to comply with the immediate dictates of his conscience, in embracing that religion which he believes most acceptable to God. Deplorable, indeed, must be the state of the man who lives in wilful error. For, however an all-wise God may hereafter dispose of those who err in their honesty, and whose error, is involuntary and invincible, surely no road can be right to the wretch who walks in it against conviction. A thorough conviction, then, that I am ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... 1818 Colin Robertson and several others were charged at Montreal with the wilful destruction of Fort Gibraltar, but the jury would not convict the accused upon the evidence presented. In September, at the {134} judicial sessions at Sandwich, Lord Selkirk was again faced with charges. A legal celebrity of the day, Chief Justice Dummer Powell, ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... but he resolved to turn the instructions of the present evening to this subject. He began thus: "My dear boys, however light some of you may make of robbing an orchard, yet I have often told you there is no such thing as a little sin, if it be wilful or habitual. I wish now to explain to you, also, that there is hardly such a thing as a single solitary sin. You know I teach you not merely to repeat the commandments as an exercise for your memory, but as a rule for your conduct. If you were ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More

... eighteen—faced her father with a look at once tearfully saucy and lovingly firm. The sauciness, however, was superficial and physical, not in any degree a part of her mental mood. She could not, had she tried, have been the least bit wilful or impertinent with her father, who had always been a model of tenderness. Besides, a girl never lived who loved a parent more unreservedly ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... shall remain. You have left the Church of which Monsignor Lafelle is a part. Either you have done that Church, and him, a great injustice—or he does ignorant or wilful wrong in insisting that I ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... when the coroner's jury returned in the case of Richard Harborne a verdict of "Wilful murder by some person unknown," a girl sat in her small, plainly-furnished bedroom on the top floor of a house in New Oxford Street, in London, holding the evening paper in her thin, ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... Assyria within the territories of the Medes, so Herodotus's revolt of the same people and commencement of their monarchy under Deioces falls almost exactly at the date when they entirely lose their independence. As there is no reason to suspect Herodotus either of partiality toward the Medes or of any wilful departure from the truth, we must regard him as imposed upon by his informants, who were probably either Medes or Persians. These mendacious patriots found little difficulty in palming their false tale upon ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson

... an out-and-out wilful old girl as you are, Mary!" ejaculated Lynde, scarlet with mortification. "I begin to ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... additional punishment cannot be imposed by administrative action.[80] In an early case, the Court held that a section prescribing penalties for any violation of a statute did not warrant a prosecution for wilful disobedience of regulations authorized by, and lawfully issued pursuant to, the act.[81] Without disavowing this general proposition, the Court, in 1944, upheld a suspension order issued by the OPA whereby a dealer in fuel oil who had violated rationing ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... after Hycy's rejection by Miss Clinton, they were all at breakfast, "the accomplished" being in one of his musical and polite moods, his father bland but sarcastic, and Edward in a state of actual pain on witnessing the wilful disrespect or rather contempt that was implied by Hycy towards his parents. "Well, Ned," said his father, "didn't we spend a pleasant evenin' in Gerald Cavanagh's last night? Isn't ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... might have lived Struggling like Lizzy," was the thought that rived The wretched mother's heart when she knew all. "But for my foolishness about that shawl— And Master would have kept them back the day; But I was wilful—driving them away In such ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various

... suppressed irritation, so many baffled longings and earnest efforts to bring their natures together. They were the supreme, quiet evidence of the divergence of two lives—that slow divergence which had been far from being wilful, and was the more hopeless in that it had been so gradual and so gentle. They had never really had a quarrel, having enlightened views of marriage; but they had smiled. They had smiled so often through so many years that no two people in the world could ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... an unjustifiable libel on the entire class to accuse them of wilful extravagance. I deliberately affirm that the majority of farmers in Wiltshire are exactly the reverse; that, while they practise a generous hospitality to a friend or a stranger, they are decidedly saving and frugal rather than extravagant, and they are compelled to be so by the ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... wilful enough, but Dahcotah women are particularly so. Slaves as they are to their husbands, they lord it over each other, and it is only when they become grandmothers that they seem to feel their dependence, and in many instances yield implicit ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... Wilson and the murdered young man was brought forward, and gave his evidence, clear, simple, and straightforward. The coroner had no hesitation, the jury had none, but the verdict was cautiously worded. "Wilful murder against some ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... to add, that the verdict at the Coroner's Inquest was Wilful Murder against some person, or persons, unknown. Mr. Ablewhite's family have offered a reward, and no effort has been left untried to discover the guilty persons. The man dressed like a mechanic has eluded all inquiries. The Indians have been traced. As to the prospect of ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... one's self. That must be wrong. In talking to you only about myself I know I am wrong, but I cannot help it: I must do so. Do not think ill of me for it. You see I have not been brought up like other girls. Was my guardian right in that? Perhaps if he had insisted upon not letting me have my own wilful way, if he had made me read the books which Mr. and Mrs. Emlyn wanted to force on me, instead of the poems and fairy tales which he gave me, I should have had so much more to think of that I should have thought less of myself. You ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Dame Burton, as she received the note again, "the provost guard is on the lad's track, and with a warrant. I told thee thy wilful ways would lead but ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... good tempered and not inclined to be quarrelsome with his kennel mates; but he is wilful, and loves to roam apart in search of game, and is not very amenable to discipline when alone. On the other hand, he works admirably with his companions in the pack, when he is most painstaking and indefatigable. Endowed with remarkable ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... been mercifully endowed with an instinct which discerns unconsciously what is becoming or not, and whatever at the first moment jars on that sense is unbecoming in her own individual case. The fineness of the perception may be destroyed by education, or wilful dulling, and often on one point it may be silent, though alive and ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... been less at home than elsewhere ever since I came from London; which hath vext me the more in regard I have been detained from the desire I had of being with you before this time. Such entertainment, however, must all those have that have to do with such a purse-proud and wilful person as Sir Edward Hales. This next week being Michaelmas week, we shall end all and I be at liberty, I hope, to consider my own contentments. In the meantime I know not what excuses to make for the trouble I have put you to already, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... had in hand, saying that he would rather die than do what he had promised. For (he told her) just as there was no living man whom he would not venture to attack in anger, although he would rather die than commit a causeless and wilful murder unless his honour compelled him to it; even so, unless driven by extreme love, such as may serve to blind virtuous men, he would rather die than break his marriage vow ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... is how I know that they were all three in communication; because, the very next moment, Florrie turned round and ran to me, and said in her pretty baby-talk, 'Talking to Bran. Florrie talking to Bran.' If this was wilful deceit it was most accomplished. It could not have been better done. 'And who else were you talking to, Florrie?' I said. She fixed her round blue eyes upon me, as if in wonder, then looked away and said shortly, 'No one else.' And I could not get her to confess or admit then or at any time ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... "Blessed are the poor in spirit." It is a secret, hidden life. We may be hardly aware that we are growing, till some day a test comes and we find we are established. Have you got above the power of sin so that Christ is keeping you from wilful disobedience? Does it give you a shudder to know the consciousness of sin? Are you lifted ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... within his father's Court, The Saint was shrinde whom he did honor most; A louely dame, a virgin pure and chaste, And worthy of a Prince to be embrac'te, Had but her birth (which was obscure, they said) Answerd her beautie; this their opinion staid. Yet did this wilful youth affect her still And none but she was mistres of his will: Full often did his father him disswade From liking such a mean and low-born mayde; The more his father stroue to change his minde The more the sonne became ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various

... WORLD.—Roughly, there are two kinds of individuals in the world, the individual who will, and the individual who will not. There are individuals who will not see the truth, who fail to see the point in an argument, who are obtuse and obstinate. This trait is largely wilful perversity and ignorance. We cannot help noting them in the passing, but we scarcely hope to interest them, though we ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... being flouted. But it ended only in trembling and furtive watching, till Ernestine's reckless scorn at the idea of chivalry moved the ancient dame faintly to admonish the girl, as a nurse might speak to a wilful child. 'Dear! Dear!'—and then furtively trying to soothe the great policeman she twittered at his elbow, 'No! ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... presents itself: How can such deliberate and wilful determination of the number of children a husband and wife may ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... all Christians, of all denominations whatsoever, the bread-wafer when once consecrated is a holy thing. To Catholics and Lutherans there is there, substantially, the Presence of God. No imaginable act of sacrilege can be more unpardonable than the desecration of the tabernacle and the wilful defilement and destruction of the ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... the possession of its object, which in this case ought always if possible to be obtained. The ruinous consequences arising from disappointment, which happen almost every day, are dreadful to relate; and no punishment can be too great for those whose wilful conduct becomes the occasion of such catastrophes. Parents are deeply laden with guilt, who by this means plunge their children into irretrievable ruin; and lovers are deserving of no forgiveness, whose treacherous ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... pinion. She was a little too—vivacious, you might say—"gushing" would perhaps be the word if you were speaking of a modern maiden with so exuberant a disposition as Juliet's. She was too romantic, too blossomy, too impetuous, too wilful; old Capulet had brought her up injudiciously, and Lady Capulet was a nonentity. Yet in spite of faults of training and some slight inherent flaws of character, Juliet was a superb creature; there was a fascinating dash in her frankness; her modesty and daring ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... sir," the boy said respectfully. "I will give you no cause to complain of me, at least no wilful cause." ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty

... wretched any faith be given, I swear by all th' unpitying powers of Heaven, 70 No wilful crime this heavy vengeance bred; In mutual innocence our lives we led: If this be false, let these new greens decay, Let sounding axes lop my limbs away, And crackling flames on all my honours prey. But from ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... branches for bearing and ripening wood for the ensuing year, as well as to regulate and proportion the size of the tree to the functions of the roots in supplying sustenance, and the convenience of picking the berries when ripe. Every old bough which has seen its day, every wilful shoot growing in a wrong direction, every fork, every cross branch or dead ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... those consequences and the facts ascertained by experience; it does not mean that your high a priori generalizations are themselves to be tested by the nasty, searching instrument of reason. Thus it comes about that the second master to whom M. Lhote would put this wild and wilful age of ours to school is that mysterious trinity of painters which goes by the name of ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... near for birds of passage to travel, they seem to know it by an inward restlessness; they long to be away—they know that delay is dangerous, and, so strong is the longing to be gone, that migratory birds kept back by accident or wilful cruelty, often die of the desire to go. The young cuckoo never survives an attempt to detain him. A poor, wild goose, with a lame wing, was seen bravely setting out on foot to do his journey of hundreds of miles over sea and land, when he saw his brethren depart ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... of Louis, uncommonly so, for one who was naturally rash and headstrong, but unfortunately Hector was inflexible and wilful: when once he had made up his mind upon any point, he had too good an opinion of his own judgment to give it up. At last, he declared his intention, rather than remain a slave to such cowardly fears as he now deemed them, to go forth boldly, and endeavour ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... of this statement is the large increase in the number of idiots, insane persons, and paupers during 1905, which, coupled with an increase of twenty-five per cent. in the number of diseased aliens, justifies the Bureau in directing attention to the flagrant and wilful disregard by the ocean carriers of the laws for the regulation of their business of securing alien passengers ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... one party was bound, so was the other; and he thoroughly sided with Edgar in not being threatened out of it whilst Alice persisted. Still more flatly did he refuse Miss Pearson's entreaty that he would see the wilful girl, and persuade her how hopeless was her resistance, and how little prospect of the attachment being prosperous. Nothing but despair and perplexity could have prompted the good aunts to try such a resource, but they were at their wits' end. They really loved their niece, and they ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... work for good, this pain and separation," murmured she. "I'm no' like the minister, but frail and foolish, and wilful too whiles, but I humbly hope that I am one of those ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson



Words linked to "Wilful" :   willful, wilfulness, disobedient, self-willed, voluntary



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