Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Wont   Listen
verb
Wont  v. t.  To accustom; used reflexively.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Wont" Quotes from Famous Books



... least the second voyage, instead of sending others. But here, it seems, is the fatal, and yet pardonable mistake, which haunts the man throughout. He tries to be too many men at once. Fatal: because, though he leaves his trace on more things than one man is wont to do, he, strictly speaking, conquers nothing, brings nothing to a consummation. Virginia, Guiana, the 'History of the World,' his own career as a statesman—as dictator (for he might have been dictator had he chosen)—all are left unfinished. And yet most pardonable; ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... supper-party that night she was quieter than was her wont; and, contrary to her habit, one of the first to leave. A well-known rising politician, who had been paying her much attention of late, prepared, as usual, to escort her home. She wished he would have stayed behind, but had no sufficient reason for refusing his company. He taxed ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... said, an hoary pile, 'Midst the green navel of our isle, 90 Thy shrine in some religious wood, O soul-enforcing goddess, stood! There oft the painted native's feet Were wont thy form celestial meet: Though now with hopeless toil we trace 95 Time's backward rolls, to find its place; Whether the fiery-tressed Dane, Or Roman's self o'erturn'd the fane, Or in what heaven-left age it fell, 'Twere hard for modern ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... the young stone mason, but she could do nothing more for him even had she known just what to do. Then one morning when she made her usual rounds, she was happily surprised to find him back on the job, working as was his wont a little to one side of his foreign mates with his own helper. His face looked as red as ever, and his eyes were also suspiciously red, but this was the only evidence of his spree that she could see. As Adelle advanced to the place where he was working, ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... Poems," vol. i., p. 2. It is certainly strange that Boswell, so far as I know, nowhere quotes these lines. He was not wont to let the world remain in ignorance of any compliment that had been paid him. I fear that he was rather ashamed at finding himself praised by a writer who was not only a woman, but also was the wife of "a little presbyterian parson who kept ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... the Soshi-Ryaku,(1) "is the Messenger of Earnest Desire. When the rich Sudatta wished to invite the Buddha to a repast, he made use of incense. He was wont to ascend to the roof of his house on the eve of the day of the entertainment, and to remain standing there all night, holding a censer of precious incense. And as often as he did thus, the Buddha never failed ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... lest yet he might seem to do nothing, got hold of the totter'd coat, and as spitefully roar'd, they had robb'd us of it: But our case was in no wise like theirs, and the rabble that came in to the out-cry, ridicul'd, as they were wont, the weaker side, in that the others laid claim to so rich a mantle, and we to a ragged coat, scarce worth a good patch. At this Ascyltos could hardly keep his countenance; but the noise being over, We see, said he, how every ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... with the adjacent Castel Abbadessa (Gomilica). It belonged to the lordship of Sucurac, which embraced nine villages. The nuns in the sixteenth century erected the Castello on an island, and here the abbesses were wont to come for the summer; hence the name. The nuns built the little church at the entrance of the village on the right of the road; it was dedicated to SS. Cosmo and Damian, and consecrated by Assalone, archbishop of Spalato, 1159-1160. It is suggested ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... richly rewarded by the view of the Colosseum Panorama, but what must have been their sensations at a distance of 6,600 feet high, when with the huge machine they appeared little more than a speck. The varnish, or glare, which our Correspondent describes, was that charming effect which we are wont to admire here, on earth, in evening scenes, especially when they are lit up by the splendour of the setting sun; but which must be doubly enchanting when viewed from so great an altitude. He likewise tells us that the landscape appeared to recede like a moving panorama, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 376, Saturday, June 20, 1829. • Various

... (consequentially inevitable) ratting from Right to Left. M. Rod brought into the matter direct reminiscences of the Parnell and Dilke cases, and possibly owed the conception of the whole book to them; but he has, as is sometimes his wont, rather "sicklied it over" with ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... read somewhere in Mons. Rapin's Reflections sur la Poetique, that a certain Venetian nobleman, Andrea Naugeria by name, was wont every year to sacrifice a Martial to the manes of Catullus: In imitation of this, a celebrated poet, in the preface before the Spanish Friar, is pleased to acquaint the world, that he has indignation enough to burn a Bussy D'Amboys, annually, to the memory of Ben Jonson. Since the modern ceremony, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... the old couple and their daughter were sat by their cheerful fire. Tip, as was his wont, smoking his pipe,—the old woman bending over the oft consulted bible, and Sally with her elbow resting upon the table and her head leaned upon her hand, gazing at the kitten sleeping on the hearth, although she saw ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley

... of Harold stood well together, as their wont was, and formed sixty and one squares, with a like number of men in every square thereof, and woe to the hardy Norman who ventured to enter their redoubts; for a single blow of a Saxon war-hatchet would break his lance and cut through ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... spirit had roused itself, mightily, in the little country town. People had forgotten their own needs, and the provision they were wont to make, at this time, each household for itself. Money and material, and quick, willing hands were found, and a good work went on; and kindling zeal, and noble sympathies, and hearty prayers wove themselves in, with toil of thread and needle, to homely fabrics, and embalmed, with every ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... over one of the sisters came to me and said, 'My brother, wont you come along to the meeting? You need salvation.' 'Yes,' I said, 'I need something better than what I have got.' At the same time I did not go—I finished up the day in the saloon. I came out into the open air again and the devil said, 'You cannot ...
— The Personal Touch • J. Wilbur Chapman

... however, with my mineral-water view, a discriminatory sense that was not enjoyed in the highball period—that is to say, I found, observed with the cold and mayhap critical eye of abstinence, that a number of those with whom I was wont to associate needed the softening glow radiated by the liquor in me to make them as good as I had previously thought they were. There were some I found I did not miss, and more came to the same conclusion about me. They were all right—fine!—when seen or heard through ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe

... movement to join Pez, full of confidence in spite of the check at La Hogaza. It was now 1818. He was wont to say "This year will see the end of the Spanish power in Venezuela." His faith had more foundation than during his exile and the earlier expeditions, when, with a handful of men, he had started to fight ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... morning, long before the ordinary time for opening the library, Abner was at his post. He took the key from the concealed nail where Mr. Brownsill was wont to hang it. He opened the door and windows, as the librarian told him he must do; he swept the floor; he dusted the books; and then he took the water-pail, and proceeded to the pump hard by. He filled it, then he sat down and wiped ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... his misfortune at Dover inspired Erasmus were bitter anger and thirst for revenge. A few months later he writes to Batt: 'Things with me are as they are wont to be in such cases: the wound received in England begins to smart only now that it has become inveterate, and that the more as I cannot have my revenge in any way'. And six months later, 'I shall swallow it. An occasion may offer itself, no doubt, to be even with them.' ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... fairly trembling with wrath by this time. The idea that this simple, unlettered, friendless "girl of the people" should so coolly brave him—him on whose words enraptured ears were wont to hang, at whose eloquence enthusiastic hundreds burst into applause! It stung him to the very marrow of his conceit. Something must be said or done to bring her to her knees, and, believing that ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King

... his niece, instead of inducing him to forget his fears, on the contrary tended more and more to aggravate them. The loss of her cheerful society tended also to depress his spirits; and in order to dispel the gloom, which often crept upon his mind after his daily occupations were over, he was wont frequently to ask Schalken to accompany him home, and share his otherwise ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... Those who are wont to accept others at their self-assessment and to see things through other people's eyes—and there are many such—are in danger of thinking this kind of writing very fine, when in fact it is not only the veriest swosh, but that kind of swosh that excites at least an occasional doubt with regard ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... overtaken him. He knew that. His fair dreams fell from him, he sighed deeply, and philosophically, as was his wont, abandoned himself to ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson

... the season the new wonder carried no cotton, but her lower deck showed "right smart o' freight," and wherever passengers were wont to stand stood a crowd looking so content that on the shore one lean and hungry native with his hands in his trousers to the elbows drawled sourly as his eye singled out ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... to be interested in my lecture upon Astronomy, and said "I seemed to be a hand at Chemistry." Well so I am. As you know, when I was a mere child I was always fond of experiments of an analytical character. He asked me if I had a doll, and I suppose he referred to the old lay-figure that I was wont to sketch before I took to studying from the nude. And now you will ask, why I am writing to you, when both you and I are so busy—when we are both preparing for matriculation? When we have so little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various

... him more kindly than was his wont. "My boy," he said, "I know something about you outside of business, though not much. And I think you'll do. Mind you, your missionary work will be tools and hardware, not the Methodist Church. You will have to show people who have their own ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... covered with verses and strange paintings, among which Moses and Aaron show in peculiar uncouthness. The aisles were filled with family pews or private boxes, raised aloft, and approached by private doors and staircases. These were owned by the magnates of the place, who were wont to bow their recognitions across the nave. There was a decrepit west gallery for the band, and the ground floor was crammed with cranky pews of every shape. A Carolean pulpit stood against a pillar, with reading-desk and clerk's box underneath. The ante-Communion Service was ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... will. Upon a time, she was, on a Lord's day, for going to hear a sermon, and Mr. Badman was unwilling she should; but she at that time, as it seems, did put on more courage than she was wont; and, therefore, after she had spent upon him a great many fair words and entreaties, if perhaps she might have prevailed by them, but all to no purpose at all, at last she said she would go, and rendered this reason for ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... pride of the Dacres revolted at this; besides, Miss Marion was a comfort to her uncle, when his daughters were absent or occupied. So the dear young lady gave up her own wishes, and strove to do all she could for her generous benefactor, as she was wont to call ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... clasping her hands and bowing her head upon them, while her person swayed from side to side in the abandon of her prayer. Who could she be, and what was her mighty need of blessing or forgiveness? As her wont was, Kitty threw her own soul into the imagined case of the suppliant, the tragedy of her desire or sorrow. Yet, like all who suffer sympathetically, she was not without consolations unknown to the principal; and the waning afternoon, ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells

... sometimes through a certain hamlet, which has sprung suddenly into being on a hill-top where formerly stood a pine grove. The builders of the houses have preserved (doubtless they use that word) a goodly number of the trees. But though I have been wont to esteem the poorest tree as better than none, I am almost ready to forswear my opinion at sight of these slender trunks, so ungainly and unsupported. The first breeze, one would say, must bring ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey

... we did run away.) Overstrain and collapse, ill-usage short of torture, hard living and short commons, one got a certain accustomedness to, according to the merciful law which within certain limits makes a second nature for us out of use and wont. The one pain that knew no pause, and allowed of no revival, the evil that overbore us, mind and body, was the evil of constant dread. Upon us little boys fear lay always, and the terror of it was that it was uncertain. What would come ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... separated from my ihai, so that I may continue to care for him and to nurse him— since thou knowest that he should have the breast for three years. This, my last asking, I entreat thee, do not forget." But the mother being dead, the father could not labor as he had been wont to do, and also take care of so young a child, requiring continual attention both night and day; and he was too poor to hire a nurse. So he took to selling pipe-stems, as he could thus make a little money without leaving ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... and spent the next two days after his wont; the only observable difference being the position of his garden chair. It stood as a rule under the shadow of the broad eaves, but now Master Simon ordered the tap-boy to carry it out and set it by a rustic table close to the river's brink, whence, as he smoked, ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... In one way or other he continued improving to the last. In drawing from nature, his habit was to sketch very slightly, making only such a memorandum as sufficed to work from. The scholars of Andrea were very numerous; but, according to Vasari, they were not wont to stay long, being domineered over by his wife; Pontormo and Domenico ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... functionaries in uniform came, as they constantly did come, plunging out of wooden boxes to look at it—or in other words to beg—and who, stone deaf to my entreaties that the man might have a trifle given him, and we resume our journey in peace, was wont to sit reviling the functionary in broken English: while the unfortunate man's face was a portrait of mental agony framed in the coach window, from his perfect ignorance of what was ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... having tried the ministry and completely failed, wisely judged that that was not the way in which he could best serve God, and turned to commerce. He is now a substantial merchant, and supports five other men to preach the Gospel; each of whom, he is wont to say, does it much better than he ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... to make the one national hero was after all a Virginian, and Virginians have not forgotten the impatient utterances of the "imperial man" on the soil of Massachusetts and in the streets of New York. Nobody takes Knickerbocker's History of New York seriously, as owlish historians are wont to take Aristophanes. Why not? We accept the hostility of Attica and Boeotia, of Attica and Megara; and there are no more graphic chapters than those which set forth the enmity between New York and Maryland, ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve

... too furious to speak. He simply swung his pack upon his back and continued upon his march. Lord John came abreast of me, however, and his face was more grave than was his wont. He had his Zeiss glasses ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... hours and forty minutes. Avoiding flights of eloquence that were wont to entrance Gladstone's audience on Budget nights, resisting temptation to epigram that beset Mr. Chancellor Lowe, was content with plain business statement. The massive figures dealt with, the millions lightly scattered there ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various

... Karanghur Pass was seen the valley of Maidan, the spot which the Afridis were wont to boast no infidel had ever gazed upon. The view was magnificent. From the foot of the slope stretched a valley, broken here and there by ravines and nullahs. Every inch of it seemed to be cultivated; and it was one wide expanse of terraced fields, sprinkled with groves and dotted ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty

... spent, the eunuchs led the Wazir's son into the bridal chamber. He was the first to seek his couch; then the Queen his mother-in-law, came into him leading the bride, and followed by her suite. She did with her virgin daughter as parents are wont to do, removed her wedding-raiment, and donning a night-dress, placed her in her bridegroom's arms. Then, wishing her all joy, she with her ladies went away and shut the door. At that instant came the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... figure disappeared. And now the astounded philosopher, his amazement growing with each passing moment, found himself transported as it seemed to another world,—the world of the dead. Men and women of his acquaintance greeted him as they had been wont to do when on earth, pressed about him, eagerly questioned him. Their faces still wore the familiar expressions of kindliness, anxiety, sincerity, ill will, as the case might be. In every way they appeared to be still numbered among the living. ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce

... whose wintry peaks winds of ambition have roared, storms of vaulting self-love have gathered, tempests of passion have contended in angry and fierce strife. To brighten the heights they assailed each one, to clear the lofty airs embracing them. They shine now where clouds were wont to hover; sunshine steeps the rugged declivities where mists of ages hung their impenetrable folds, paths invite where unknown, forbidding fastnesses repelled even daring feet, and thus the stormy career of conflict is vindicated in its results. The dove ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... them had already received from the English, paying for each as many as twenty beavers and for a pound of powder as much as ten to twelve guilders, they came down in greater numbers than was their wont where people were well supplied with guns, purchasing these at a fair price, thus realizing great profit; afterwards they obtained some from their Heer Patroon for their self-defence in time of need, as we suppose. This extraordinary gain was not kept long a secret, the ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor

... led straight by Fern's Hollow, and he saw that already upon the old site the foundation was laid for a new house containing three rooms. In everything else the aspect of the place remained unchanged; there still hung the creaking wicket, where little Nan had been wont to look for his coming home, until she could run with outstretched arms to meet him. The beehives stood yet beneath the hedge, and the bees were flying to and fro, seeking out the few flowers of the autumn upon the ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton

... imagine, in as perfect a paradise as vagrom goatish nature would care for or expect. At a low estimate, I should place the present population of the old fortress at a thousand people, and about the same number of goats. In the days when the bold Turkoman raiders were wont to make their dreaded damans almost up to the walls of Teheran, and such strongholds as this were the only safeguard of out-lying villagers, the interior of Lasgird fortress resembled a spacious amphitheatre, around which hundreds of huts ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... neighbours were at first inclined to commiserate Big Anne, who was pronounced to be "a dacint, sinsible, poor woman," for the oddities of her household, the incalculable flightiness of Mad Bell, and the impenetrable silence of the Dummy. But to their condoling remarks she was wont to reply in effect—"Ah sure, ma'am, that's the way I'm used to them, the crathurs. Why, if Mad Bell said anythin' over-sinsible, or poor Winnie said anythin' at all, it's wond'rin' I'd be what was goin' to happin us next." ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... West's all-around playing. But Joel, nevertheless, derived not a little encouragement from that result, and bade fair to become almost if not quite as enthusiastic a golfer as West. At first, in the earlier stages of his initiation, Joel was often discouraged, whereupon West was wont to repeat the famous reply of the old St. Andrews player to the college professor, who did not understand why, when he could teach Latin and Greek, he failed so dismally at golf. "Ay, I ken well ye can teach the Latin and Greek," said the veteran, "but it takes brains, mon, to play the gowf!" ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... came on at night, and were over before morning, so that they did not specially interfere with her work, they were not alarming to the rest of the household. Indeed, they seldom heard of them till they were over; for the considerate Mrs Tilman was wont to insist to Sarah, that the ladies should not be disturbed on her account. But Sarah had become a little uncomfortable, and had confessed as much to Graeme, and Graeme desired to be told the next time she was ill, and so it happened that she was not present ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson

... yet hers was only a very little air, which was quickly wilted by the oppressive luxury of the Glynns' country-place—one of those large, ostentatious establishments that Americans are wont to start before they know how, and where consequently the elaborate domestic machinery creaks. There were men-servants of different nationalities, ladies' maids, and a houseful of guests coming and going as in a private ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... childish. Even in Cornwall he was on the lookout for his fetish. On one occasion when dining with the ex-Mayor of Liskeard, he pulled out of his pocket and used instead of a handkerchief, a dirty old grease-stained rag with which he was wont to clean his gun. {408a} This was done as a protest against something or other that seemed to him to suggest ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... were wont to send christening cards after a birth, but this has never been the fashion in this country, and it is disappearing in England. The complimentary card issued for such events is now generally an invitation to partake of caudle—a very delicious porridge made of oatmeal ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... Wilderness. Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite Into the desert, his victorious field Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10 By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds, With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds Above heroic, though in secret done, And unrecorded left through many an age: Worthy to have not remained so long unsung. ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... occasion," said Colonel Dick, "I was seated in the last tier in the public gallery, when my Senator with books and documents piled high about him solemnly addressed the Chair. As was the wont, the visitors in the gallery as one man arose to make their exit. With a revolver in each hand, I promptly planted myself in front of the door, and in no uncertain tone ordered the crowd to resume their seats, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... clad in ornamental plates of steel. They carry a citadel, and in the citadel twelve men in armour with guns and arrows.... The land is overstocked with people; but those in the country are very miserable, whilst the nobles are extremely opulent and delight in luxury. They are wont to be carried on their silver beds, preceded by some twenty chargers caparisoned in gold, and followed by three hundred men on horseback and five hundred on foot, and by horn-men, ten torch-bearers, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... a wise woman, converted it into cash while its mysterious reputation was fresh. Huddled in a great auction-room, its several catalogued items lay in humiliating contrast with the decorous order in which they were wont to be arranged. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... of it; and preached, through the cannon's throat, that great doctrine, La carriere ouverte aux talens (The Tools to him that can handle them), which is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein alone can liberty lie. Madly enough he preached, it is true, as Enthusiasts and first Missionaries are wont, with imperfect utterance, amid much frothy rant; yet as articulately perhaps as the case admitted. Or call him, if you will, an American Backwoodsman, who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle with innumerable ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... of thinking wrought a change very unlike what his mother had looked for. He mingled more in society, but Mrs. Carleton saw that the eye with which he looked upon it was yet colder than it wont to be. A cloud came over the light gay spirited manner he had used to wear. The charm of his address was as great as ever where he pleased to shew it, but much more generally now he contented himself with a cool ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... west gleamed faintly. The afterglow merged into the first night and at star-break, Venus blazed superbly on high, sending out rays mystically prismatic, as from some enchanted lamp. "Our star," Anthony Dexter had been wont to call it, as they watched for it in the scented dusk. For him, perhaps, it had been indeed the love-star, but she had followed it, with breaking ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed

... their bulwark fallen, stood; On whom the victor, to confound them more, Spurr'd with his terrible war-cry; for as one, That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears The drumming thunder of the huger fall At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear His voice in battle, and be kindled by it, And foemen scared, like that false pair who turn'd Flying, but, overtaken, died the death Themselves had wrought ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... It can not even imitate the philanthropy of English letters; it is "up" for California and a market. Does not the Church speak?—the English Church, with its millions of money; the American, with its millions of men—both wont to bay the moon of foreign heathenism? The Church is a dumb dog, that can not bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. It is a church without woman, believing in a male and jealous God, and rejoicing in ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... proof of his diplomatic abilities. He never left them enemies. According to his own solution of the mystery, he took care never to play the gallant with Dulcineas under a certain age. "Middle-aged women," he was wont to say, "are very little different from middle-aged men; they see things sensibly, and take things coolly." Now Evelyn could not be three weeks, perhaps three days, in London, without learning of one or the other of these liaisons. What an excuse, if she sought one, to break with him! Altogether, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... add, had been quite interested in Miss Dixon before the advent of Alice, and the vaudeville actress rather resented the change. She took advantage of every opportunity to make Paul fetch and carry for her as he had been wont to do. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope

... house changes hands in Rajputana there pass with it, as well as the rats and cobras and the mongoose, those beggars who were wont to plague the former owner. That is a custom so based on ancient logic that the English, who appreciate conservatism, have not even tried to ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy

... it was, Down by a dale, hard by a forest's side, Far from resort of people that did pass In traveill to and froe; a little wyde There was an holy Chappell edifyde, Wherein the hermite dewly wont to say His holy things, each morne and eventyde; Hereby a chrystall streame did gently play, Which from a ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... in whose transparent wave My youthful limbs I wont to lave, No torrents stain thy limpid source; No rocks impede thy dimpling course, That sweetly warbles o'er its bed, With white, round, polish'd pebbles spread; 10 While, lightly poised, the scaly brood In myriads cleave thy crystal flood; The ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... across the plains were wont to beguile the antelope by fastening a bright-colored handkerchief to a ramrod stuck in the ground. The patient hunter was certain to be rewarded by the antelope coming within range of his rifle; for, unless scared off by some interference, the herd, after galloping ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... the idea of an equilateral triangle of an inch perpendicular may serve us in talking of a figure, of a rectilinear figure, of a regular figure, of a triangle, and of an equilateral triangle. AR these terms, therefore, are in this case attended with the same idea; but as they are wont to be applied in a greater or lesser compass, they excite their particular habits, and thereby keep the mind in a readiness to observe, that no conclusion be formed contrary to any ideas, which are usually comprized ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... into the market when some of the plunging cliques had a bear raid under way, and would put them to rout by buying everything in sight and bidding up prices until it looked as though he intended to do as extraordinary work on the up-side as he was wont to do on the down. At such times he was the idol of the Exchange, which worships the man who puts prices up as it hates him who pulls them down. Once when war news flashed over the wires from Washington and rumour had the Cabinet members, Senators, ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... Ethiopians to the Dacotahs, rites of honor have been paid to the dead, various offerings have been placed at their graves. The Vedas enjoin the offering of a cake to the ghosts of ancestors back to the third generation. The Greeks were wont to pour wine, oil, milk, and blood into canals made in the graves of their dead. The early Christians adopted these "Feasts of the Dead" as Augustine and Tertullian call them from the heathen, and Celebrated them over the graves of their martyrs and of their other ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... ah, how pale, how wan—how languid and full of the evidences of much mental suffering was she. Where now was the elasticity of that youthful step? Where now was that lustrous beaming beauty of mirthfulness, which was wont to ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... view. They assail you from ambush and you are helpless. The deadly missiles smite you on every side, but there is no revealing flash by which you can locate your foe. The social order is so complex that wrongs of this nature are easily perpetrated. Many of the transactions by which we are wont to profit are veiled injustices. They are of a nature so subtle and indirect that the law has not yet defined and forbidden them. Those who suffer these injustices are at a distance from us, and there is a network of legal and commercial ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... the sun shot its first ray across the bosom of the broad Pacific, when Jack sprang to his feet, and, hallooing in Peterkin's ear to awaken him, ran down the beach to take his customary dip in the sea. We did not, as was our wont, bathe that morning in our Water Garden, but, in order to save time, refreshed ourselves in the shallow water just opposite the bower. Our breakfast was also despatched without loss of time, and in less than an hour afterwards all our preparations ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... Launcelot's guilty love for Guinevere, in the great knight's conscious loss of power. His wrongful passion indirectly brought about the death of fair Elaine. He himself at times shrank from puny men wont to go down before the shadow of his spear. Like a scarlet blot his sin stains all his greatness, and he muses on ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... all, the unwise of this world are wont to make about one stranded gambling-house, in a remote corner of Liguria! If they were in earnest or sincere, how small a matter they would think it! Of course, when I say so, hypocrisy holds up its hands in holy horror. But that is ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen

... determined to retaliate upon the following day, and gathered so threateningly round the gate that, instead of the boys coming home in twos and threes, as was their wont, when playtime expired, they returned in a body. They were some forty in number, and varied in age from the little fags of the Under School, ten or twelve years old, to brawny muscular young fellows of seventeen or eighteen, senior Queen's Scholars, or Sixth Form town ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... more of the story: but, as he is very gallant, it is guessed (here I mean) that it was a present for some woman. These circumstances are little Apostolic, and will not prop the falling Church of Rome. They used to forge donations and decretals. This is a new manoeuvre. Nor were Cardinals wont to be treated so cavalierly for peccadilloes. The House of Rohan is under a cloud: his Eminence's cousin, the Prince of Guemene,[2] was forced to fly, two or three years ago, for being the Prince of Swindlers. Our Nabobs ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole

... takes place even in our time, according to the spiritual sense daily. For every man's own besetting sin is the tempest. You love God; you walk upon the sea; the swellings of this world are under your feet. You love the world; it swallows you up; its wont is to devour, not to bear up, its lovers. But when your heart fluctuates with the desire of sin, call on the divinity of Christ, that you may conquer that desire. You think that the wind is then contrary when the adversity of this world rises against you, and not also when its prosperity ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... the deep sympathy arising from kindred nobility of soul, had long cherished a high reverence for Carlyle, was very proud of having received such a guest under his roof, and during those few last weeks of life was wont to be in high spirits, talking with his several guests, and describing with much interest, his recent visit to Naseby with Carlyle, "its position on some of the highest table-land in England—the streams falling on the one side into the Atlantic, on ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle

... king at any time was checked in his illegal practices, and when the authority of the Great Charter was objected to him, he was wont to reply, "Why should I observe this charter, which is neglected by all my grandees, both prelates and nobility?" It was very reasonably said to him, "You ought, sir, to set ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... to a man like Markham. From the eyrie where his soul is wont to sit, John Markham has a fine perspective on life—yours and mine. But I imagine that you make the more conspicuous silhouette. To him you represent 'the New York Idea'—only more so. Besides that you're a vellum edition of the Feminist Movement with suffrage ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs

... quarter of Paris, where we are wont to wander with a Baedeker veiled, was the wonder of all who were permitted to view its interior. Here he had brought his magnificent Arras tapestries and among them the set of the History of Gideon, which he had had ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... dwelling with its Gobelins tapestries stifled her with its terrifying gloom, where nothing, not a single article, recalled her charming provincial home, her Grenoble house with its garden filled with lilacs where she was often wont to read while Sulpice worked upstairs, bent over his table crowded with papers, before his open window. Ah! those cherished rooms, in the humble corner of the provincial home, their happy crouching in the peaceful ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... gave certain orders, and his mother was killed. That duel between mother and son, terrible in its intensity and unnameable horror, even the Borgias could not surpass. Tacitus has told it, dramatically, as was his wont, but he told it in Latin, in which tongue it ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... pair of old brogues itself do you like those new shoes yes how much were they Ive no clothes at all the brown costume and the skirt and jacket and the one at the cleaners 3 whats that for any woman cutting up this old hat and patching up the other the men wont look at you and women try to walk on you because they know youve no man then with all the things getting dearer every day for the 4 years more I have of life up to 35 no Im what am I at all 111 be 33 in September will I what O well look at that Mrs Galbraith shes ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... accustomed hour I opened my vaulted room. My neighbor came in, as was his wont every morning, for he was a talkative man. "Well," he said, "what do you say about the terrible affair which has occurred during the night?" I pretended not to know anything. "What, do you not ...
— The Severed Hand - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Wilhelm Hauff

... could confidingly look for advice. The future was all dark before her. Scarron, though crippled, was still young, witty, and distinguished as one of the most popular poets of the day. His saloon was the intellectual centre of the capital, where the most distinguished men were wont to meet. At the close of the week Francoise returned an affirmative answer. They were soon married. She found apparently a happy home with her crippled but amiable husband. The brilliant circle in the midst of which she moved strengthened her intellect, enlarged her intelligence, ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... leathern apron, took the place of the costly clothing which he had worn in his father's dwelling. His feet were incased in awkward wooden shoes, and his head was covered with a wolf-skin cap. The dainty bed, with its downy pillows, wherein every night his mother had been wont, with gentle care, to see him safely covered, was given up for a rude heap of straw in a corner of the smithy. And the rich food to which he had been used gave place to the coarsest and humblest fare. But the lad did not complain. The days which he passed in the ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... to follow the child's development with regard to orientation in time. This development proceeds much more slowly than we are wont to assume. Certain distinctions with regard to space, as up and down, come much earlier. As Binet remarks, schools sometimes try to teach the events of national history to children whose time orientation is so rudimentary that they do not even ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... River, now called the Binue or Bimuwe, the great eastern fork of the Negro-land Nile: the true drainage of the Chadda in ancient times has lately been determined by the adventurous Dr. Nachtigal. Mr. Cooley[FN12] applied, as was his wont, a superficial knowledge of Kibundo to Fiote or Congoese, and further corrupted Moienzi Enzaddi to Muenya (for Menha or Menya) Zinzadi-this Angolan ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... away without it. Another man went to the conjurer for medicine. The old man said, "What do you want?" He said, "I want to live as long as the world stands." The old man said the request was hard to grant, but he would try to answer it. The conjurer, as was his wont, said, "Turn me over," and underneath his body was the herb. Then the conjurer told the man who wished to live forever to go to a place which was bare of everything, so bare indeed that it was destitute of all vegetation, and to stand ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes

... were down, To bide the battle's frown (Wont of old renown)— But every ship was drest In her bravest and her best, As if for a July day; Sixty flags and three, As we floated up the bay— Every peak and mast-head flew The brave Red, White, and Blue— We were eighteen ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... punish your fatal counsels by granting your wishes." After the triumph of his return to Paris, amidst the desert which was forming around the Parliament, "the martyr, the hero of liberty," as his enthusiastic admirers had been wont to call him, had to realize that instability of human affairs and that fragility of popularity to which he had shut his eyes even in his prison, when Mirabeau, ever biting and cynical, wrote to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... those who remain upon this earth, whence these others have departed. Do men and women still re-marry in the world, Allan, as in my day they were wont to do?" ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... open their eyes to sad deformities in their own communities, to which too many have become strangely indifferent through custom and wont. True, it is not pleasant to consider these distressing matters; but is it the business of the Christian to avoid that which is unpleasant? Consideration leads to sympathy, and sympathy wonderfully quickens the inventive faculties; ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... evidently gathered to adorn her person, and which she forgets in the contemplation of the story of the Cross. The artist supposes she has found this crucifix, which the early Catholic missionaries were wont to attach to the forest trees, and having heard from some of these zealous teachers an exposition of Christ's mission, the better life has already begun to dawn in her soul, and her whole aspect tells that this mysterious influence ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... put our men af their errour quho had wont to symboliz yallou with an {gh}, and to put noe difference betueen v and w, {gh} is a dental consonant, broaken betueen the top of the tongue and root of the teeth; yal, a guttural sound, made be a mynt of the tongue to the roofe of the mouth, ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume

... of the fort, fronted by a wide verandah, immediately caught the eye of the visitor. It contained a council-hall, the mercantile parliament-chamber of the Nor'westers. Under the same roof was a great banqueting-hall, in which two hundred persons could be seated. In this hall were wont to gather the notables of the North-West Company, and any guests who were fortunate enough to gain admission. Here, in the heart of the wilderness, there was no stint of food when the long tables were spread. Chefs brought from Montreal prepared savoury viands; ...
— The Red River Colony - A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba • Louis Aubrey Wood

... clear up all the difficulty, and do you see that I never dreamed of 'reproaching you for dealing out one sort of cards to me and everybody else'—but that ... why, 'that' which I have, I hope, said, so need not resay. I will tell you—Sydney Smith laughs somewhere at some Methodist or other whose wont was, on meeting an acquaintance in the street, to open at once on him with some enquiry after the state of his soul—Sydney knows better now, and sees that one might quite as wisely ask such questions as the price of Illinois stock or condition of glebe-land,—and I could say ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... demonstrations of affection. After a few days Mavra relapsed into her old habits; bent all day over her embroidery frame by the narrow window, in the evening standing leaning against the door, gazing, as was her wont, at the stars. More than ever she loved them; behind these marvelous lights, that she likened to tears—for she was often sad now—she saw the black eyes and handsome, indifferent face that had taken possession ...
— The Little Russian Servant • Henri Greville

... veneer of town life has been thinly spread over the life of our village, for the man of law to go wading, with tucked-up trousers, after rats; how impossible, also, for him to frequent with me the bathing pool, as was sometimes his wont, and swim idly hither and thither, while the moon peered between the trees and the vague witchery of the summer night filled his spirit and my own. My youthful feelings, long preserved, have been irrevocably ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... after labouring all the night as was his wont, he was fain to refresh his heart with a walk in the fields. He took the hilly path which, winding between the vines and the elms they are wedded to, leads to a wood of myrtles and olives, sacred in old days to the Roman gods. His feet bathed ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... very unhappy aunt Lucy did not mean any such thing it is only Charlton's nonsense. Do go and tell her you don't think so you have broken her heart by what you said; do go, uncle Rolf! do go and make her happy again! Forget it all! Charlton did not know what he was saying wont you go, ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the newcomers. If Ted's heart ever warmed toward a living being it surely ought just then; when these lads, whom he was wont to regard as his bitter rivals, and enemies in everything at school, took such chances simply because they could not see a Stanhope ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... long line of Cardew women behind her, women who had loved, and suffered dominance because they loved. Her very infatuation for Louis Akers, like Elinor's for Doyle, was possibly an inheritance from her fore-mothers, who had been wont to overlook the evil in a man for the strength in him. Only Lily mistook physical strength for moral fibre, insolence and effrontery ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... with the law. The old Squire would have nothing to do with his heir,—in which resolution he was strengthened by the tidings which reached him of his heir's manner of living. He was taught to believe that everything was going to the dogs with the young man, and was wont to say that Newton Priory, with all its acres, would be found to have gone to the dogs too when his day was done;—unless, indeed, Ralph should fortunately kill himself by drink or evil living, in which case the property would go to the younger Gregory, the ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... inquire better into the matter of this science with the same freedom of mind with which we are wont to treat lines and surfaces in mathematics, I determined not to laugh or weep over the actions of men but simply to understand them, and to contemplate their affections and passions such as love, hate, anger, envy, arrogance, pity, and all other disturbances of soul not as vices ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... world. I do not refer to those hairy articles of female apparel in which ladies are wont to place their hands, handkerchiefs, and scent-bottles. Although not given to the use of slang, I avail myself of it on this occasion, the word "muff" being eminently expressive of a certain class of boys, big as well as little, old as well as young. There are three distinct classes ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... of all the natives of the countryside in regard to their rights as against those of outsiders, meant that for the first time in their history the game laws were enforced. All the natives, instead of poaching as has been their wont, joined together in protecting club property from intruding outside sportsmen. Poachers were caught and served with the full penalties of the law. Over winter fires these people's heroism will grow, but their respect for law will grow ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... as I want to see," Aunt Myra was wont to tell her cronies. "She's likely-appearing enough,—and that's better than being too pretty. And she's helpful about the house for such a young cretur, and she's not a bit forth-putting or highty-tighty. I don't know how I should have managed ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge

... over Heaven the lamps of midnight burned Ere, weak with merriment, the Four returned, Not in that order they were wont to keep— Pinion to pinion answering, sweep for sweep, In awful diapason heard afar, But shoutingly adrift 'twixt star and star. Reeling a planet's orbit left or right As laughter took them in the abysmal Night; Or, by the ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... alone. The presence of the Dowager and Jock had freed him from any necessity of explanation, had kept him in his usual easy way; but now that Lucy alone sat opposite to him, he was more silent than his wont, and with no longer any of the little flow of simple observations which had once been so delightful to her. Sir Tom was more uneasy than if she had been a stern and jealous Eleanor, a clear-sighted critic seeing through and through him. The contest was ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant

... troubled face, took this occasion to offer comfort. His manner toward her had changed since she no longer had a part in the management of the eating-house, and for that reason she did not repulse him as sharply as she had been wont to do. He really bore Cavanagh no ill-will, and was, indeed, shrewd enough to understand that Lee admired the ranger, and that his own courtship was rather hopeless; nevertheless, he persisted, his respect for her growing as he found her ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... conceals herself in the chamber at the side, a quarter of an hour does not elapse; while formerly, according to the traditions of the Quiquendone theatre, this recitative of thirty-seven bars was wont ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... art tenfold as covenable and deliver [Note 3] as thou wert wont to be. Derbyshire ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt

... voice, and himself for listening to it, and fell again to vehement prayers and self-reproaches, trying to drown the clamor of his heart with his insistent petitions. If he could only pray as he had been wont to pray, he was saved. There lay a respite from thought and a refuge from passion. Why could he not abandon his whole soul to communion with God, as once he could, shutting out all save the sense of sin and the conviction of forgiveness? He prayed for power to pray. But, like the guilty king, ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope

... were often on Christ's lips. Like other teachers, He too had His favourite sayings, the light of which He was wont to flash into many dark places. Such a saying, for instance, was, 'To him that hath shall be given.' Such a saying is this of my text; and probably several other of our Lord's utterances, which are repeated ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... lay unused on the bench. The familiar form appeared no more on the streets. A year or more passed, and one day he came back to visit his old neighbors. He stayed a little while, and on the Sabbath was at the village church as had been his wont when his home was at Nazareth. When the opportunity was given him, he unrolled the Book of Isaiah, and read the passage which tells of the anointing of the Messiah, and gives the wonderful outline of his ministry. When he had finished the reading, he told the people that this prophecy was now ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... one other person who also discussed it very much at his ease. Sir Francis Geraldine among his friends in London had been congratulated on his safe but miraculous escape. With a certain number of men he had been wont to discuss the chances of matrimony. Should he die, without having an heir, his title and property would go to his cousin, Captain Geraldine, who was a man some fifteen years younger than himself and already in possession of a large fortune. There were many people in the world whom ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... jubilee, but the churches and the schools were the chief scenes, and hymns and prayer the chief language of this great ovation. There was no giving up to drunken revelry, but a solemn recognition of God, even by those who had not been wont to worship him. His temples were never so crowded. His ministers never so much honored. We give the picture in all its parts, faithfully, and as completely as our information ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... on posts, as ours are, at the sides, are suspended in the middle on ropes swung across, and having their opposite ends fastened to the walls of the houses. It was these ropes which the mob, in the Revolution of 1789, were wont to make use of as halters for their victims; whence their famous cry of a la lanterne, as they dragged them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various

... Max waited, and watched, and listened. If his pulses were bounding much faster than their wont it was not surprising, for as yet he had not the slightest idea as to what ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie

... on deck, and, taking his arm as had been my wont, I sauntered with him backward and forward. His gloom, however (which I considered quite natural under the circumstances), seemed entirely unabated. He said little, and that moodily, and with evident effort. I ventured a ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... family in no sense a rich one, but I was a second son, who could only look forward to a second son's portion,—an honourable distinction, this, and one of which my father and my mother were often wont ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... the cafe of the Dos Hermanos, where the gay youth of Porto Cabello were wont to congregate, and where they found the doctor. During the evening he had been lucky at baccarat, and had been investing his winnings in sweet champagne. He was in a genial mood. He would be delighted to escort the friend of Senor Roddy over the ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... view it, and that their ties with the South were often of the most brotherly kind. Indeed, when Secession was first openly agitated, and until Sumter fired the Northern heart, myriads who would now gladly disown those words were wont to say: 'Well, if they are determined to go, I suppose we must lose them.' Would Fernando Wood have ever dared at that time to publish a proclamation recommending the secession of New-York as a free city had there not then existed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Mr. Pett, with more decision than was his wont. "You know what Ann is if you try to force her to do anything. She gets her ears back and won't budge. Her father is just the same. When we were ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... ceased: at once an icy chill ran through The sturdy Trojans. From his inmost heart Thus prayed the King: "O Phoebus, wont to view With pity Troy's sore travail; thou, whose art True to Achilles aimed the Dardan dart, How oft, thou guiding, have I tracked the main Round mighty lands, to earth's remotest part Massylian tribes and Libya's sandy plain: Scarce now the flying ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... the evening, in that room at the head of the stairs, and there they who chose to see her made their way up to her, and spoke their little speeches. They who thought her to be a great woman,—and many people did think her to be great,—were wont to declare that she never forgot those who did come, or those who did not. And even they who desired to describe her as little,—for even Lady Monk had enemies,—would hint that though she never came out of the room, she would rise from her chair and make a step towards the door whenever ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... disturbance in the air all around him, he refused to be moved by it, as essentially a strife on small matters, anticipating a vagrant regret which may have visited many other minds since, the regret, namely, that the old, pensive, use-and-wont Catholicism, which had accompanied the nation's earlier struggle for existence, and consoled it therein, had been taken from it. And for himself, indeed, what impressed him in that old Catholicism was a kind of lull in it—a lulling power—like that of the monotonous organ-music, ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... I had nothing to add to these horrors; yet such was my frame of mind that I found a certain bitter gladness in listening to the telling of them, and in tracing between them and our own case the ghastly parallel. In our talk, which wont on in English, Fray Antonio took no part; but he could follow well enough the meaning of it in our tones. On his face was an expression of tender melancholy that seemed to me to tell of sorrow for us rather than of dread ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier



Words linked to "Wont" :   custom, wont to, tradition



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com