"Wilfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has lived it, and is "wise with the quiet memory of old pain." He is moral because he knows the futility of immorality. He is lonely, lovable, dignified, reliable, and sound. By serene and unobtrusive understanding he straightens out the difficulties in which the other people of the play have wilfully become entangled. He shows them the error of their follies, preaches a worldly-wise little sermon to each one, and sends them back to their true places in life, sadder and wiser men and women. In order to give ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... parliament of France have generally admitted the power of these sorcerers. In 1582 the Parliament of Paris condemned one Abel de la Rue to be hung and afterwards burnt for having wickedly and wilfully point-tied Jean Moreau de Contommiers. A singular sentence was pronounced in 1597 against M. Chamouillard for having so bewitched a young lady about to be married that her husband could not consummate the marriage. But the most singular ...
— Aphrodisiacs and Anti-aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction • John Davenport
... and catch him on his return. He had probably only gone to the telegraph office. Had Sylvia wilfully concealed the fact that her father travelled under the name of Du Cane, in order that I should not meet him? Surely there could be no reason why ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... between the Dutch and English," declared the Indian. "They are both strangers to us, and we took them to be all one. Therefore we crave pardon. We have not wilfully wronged the English." ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... sides of it, I show myself unworthy of the love of a true man; betray of what mean stuff my affection is made. I suppose blind faith is sublime! But for my part, I had rather be loved in spite of my known faults, than receive wilfully ignorant worship." ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... of jokes even more than of creeds, and understood them equally. "Miss Farringdon, you are not behaving fairly to me. You know what I mean well enough, but you wilfully misunderstand my words for the sake of laughing at them. But I will make you listen, all the same. I want to know if you will help me in my work by becoming my wife; and I think that even you can not help answering that ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... bad, resting on a false foundation, and that it has worked ill and been bolstered up by him and his party till now it can no longer be supported, and it threatens to carry away with it that which is good in itself. We owe these things to those who wilfully introduced a moral confusion of ideas into their political machinery, and, by destroying the essential distinction between right and wrong, have deprived the things which are right of the best part of their security. I have never been able to understand why ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... unendurably frigid and clumsy; he tries light social satire, and is fain to confess that we can spy a beard under the muffler of his feminine characters; he treats us to criticism which, like Addison's, goes upon exploded principles, but unlike Addison's, is apt to be almost wilfully outrageous. His odd remarks upon Milton's versification are the worst example of this weakness. The result is what one might expect from the attempt of a writer without an ear to sit in judgment upon the greatest master ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... clearly and distinctly, from that circle. He begins an independent existence, controlled in an overwhelming degree by the life of the theatre and home-life, but also leading a life of his own at school and very wilfully taking a line or lines of his own there. We can now begin to trace the growth of the mental, and especially the artistic, nature of one of the most stupendous geniuses the earth has produced. It is altogether unnecessary to try to piece together anything approaching ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... upon such animals as hares, birds, and the young of either antelopes, deer, pigs, &c. Although a snake if trodden upon might by a spasmodic impulse inflict a bite, it would nine times out of ten endeavour to escape. The idea of any snake wilfully and maliciously premeditating an attack upon a man is quite out of the question, unless it has been either teased or excited by a dog when hunting. The same principle will hold good in the case of animals. No snake that feeds only upon rats, mice, and such small animals would ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... to-morrow. At least, I think I will. I don't neglect things wilfully, but it's so awfully hard to really get at ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... memory of this story that had caused me to give such explicit instructions, that I was to be informed of the presence of a stranger in our neighbourhood before making our plight known by the ignition of the flare. The unruly youngster had wilfully disobeyed me, with the result that, for all he or I knew to the contrary, the attentions of a band of ruthless outlaws or bloodthirsty pirates had possibly been invited. I could only hope that this might not be the case, and that the stranger, ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... to the Louvre three times, and to Versailles and St. Cloud," said Katy, wilfully ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... 'Jewel,' 'Angel,'" jested Mary, thrilling at the echo of a certain low, fluttered voice, that had sounded in her own ears and would wilfully repeat, "Winsome ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... law unto themselves, carry off the book wanted, keep it until read, and then return it surreptitiously, by replacing it on some shelf or table, when no one is looking. This is where no intention of stealing the book exists, and the borrower wilfully makes his own convenience override the library regulations, in the belief that he will not be found out. The Buffalo Young Men's Library reported in one year eighteen illustrated works on the fine arts, reserved from being taken out by its by-laws, as disappearing ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... name figured to a much later time on the list of living potentates. It is also true that when the seeds thrown by him had grown luxuriantly, and were bearing fruit, the sower was almost entirely forgotten or wilfully ignored. The generation, however, of the "Stuermer und Draenger,"[58] or, as they were pleased to denominate themselves, the "original geniuses," looked up to Herder as their leader and prophet. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... It is bad policy to do it even now (as challenges have already passed between myself and a proprietor of the Union, and the matter is still in abeyance,) but I suppose I had better say a word or two to show the ladies that I did not wilfully and maliciously do ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the discovery that it answers no purpose, and has been undergone to no account? Therefore, if we can get rid of it, we need never have been subject to it. It must be acknowledged, then, that men take up grief wilfully and knowingly; and this appears from the patience of those who, after they have been exercised in afflictions and are better able to bear whatever befals them, suppose themselves hardened against fortune; ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... especially by Lewis and by Adams (some day I hope to meet Andy) that I need say little of it here. Still, one of the cowboy's most notable and most admirable traits has not been emphasized so much as it deserves: I mean his downright reverence and respect for womanhood. No real cowboy ever wilfully insulted any woman, or lost a chance to resent any insult offered by another. Indeed, it was an article of the cowboy creed never broken, and all well knew it. So it happened that when one day a cowboy, in a crowded car ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... knaves, Mr. Michelet; at least not wilfully so; but silly hysteric patients, of the spirit-rapping, revivalist order, victims of nervous ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... as they are, I can truly promise the reader that he will find nothing wilfully misrepresented, nor advanced without just authority; and if the rapid and cursory character of the observations, allusions, and anecdotes, shall enable an hour to pass agreeably that has no better employment, I am content, and gratified with the attainment of all I ever hoped or designed ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... prison sentence and if you have included me in 'many of the comrades,' I want you to strike my name from your list. I loathe to be a 'comrade' of yours. You and your paper helped to create a hatred against the Socialist Party and you wilfully and maliciously lied about the National Executive Committee when it refused to follow a course that would put more of our members in prison. In other words, you and your paper must bear a part of the responsibility for the prosecution and persecution of the Socialists and it is rank hypocrisy ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... with the unknowable. God only leaves us in uncertainty when we wilfully close our ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... circumstance, meantime, to any living being. As a matter of course, it was speedily confided, in like manner, to the whole population; and on the appointed day, crowds assembled to laugh at the credulity of one another. A poor tradesman of the town had taken wilfully the same fatal leap, only on the day preceding my visit. Many of the poor Indians are lost over the fall, when rum has been in plenty. A squaw was observed upon one occasion, with her canoe absorbed in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... two Court-days after this, and desired to see the Declaration, and still you denied us unless we would fee an Attorney, so greedy are these Attornies after money, more than to justify a righteous cause. We told them that we could not fee any unless we would wilfully break our National Covenant, which both Parliament and People have taken jointly together to effect a Reformation. And unless we would be professed Traitors to the Nation and Common-wealth of England, by upholding the old Norman tyrannical and destructive Laws, when ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... name but holy. A light which reveals the inner state, and shows the needs of the human soul. It may be rejected, but it cannot be destroyed. Man may turn his back upon it, yet it shines on, though he wilfully refuses to enjoy the blessing it imparts. The testimony of one who lives in a dark, narrow lane, that the sun does not exist, would not be considered of any value. Supposing one chooses to close his eyes, and declare that it is not morning; shall those whose eyes are open accept his assertion? ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... sought to fall into trances, in the dreams of which they realised their waking aspirations. They entertained no doubt, however, that their visits to the Devil and their nocturnal exploits were genuine; and they seem to have wilfully shut their eyes to the possibility of their having never left their beds. For, with a skill that should have betrayed to them the truth, they were used to prepare a witch-broth to promote in some way their nightly expeditions. And this they composed not only of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the hater of war and conquest, the foe of unjust British domination over inferior races—it was this that he had helped to make plausible with his special knowledge and his ready pen! Oh, heaven, what reparation could he make for this horrid crime he had knowingly and wilfully committed? What could he do to avoid the guilt of those poor savages' blood upon his devoted head? In one moment he thought out a hundred scenes of massacre and pillage—scenes such as he knew only too well always precede and accompany the blessings of British rule in distant dependencies. ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... Charlemont, then commanding Officer. True it is; for I heard an Officer, ready enough to take such Advantages, urge to him, that none of all those Posts we were become Masters of, were tenable; that to offer at it would be no better than wilfully sacrificing human Lives to Caprice and Humour; and just like a Man's knocking his Head against Stone Walls, to try which was hardest. Having over-heard this Piece of Lip-Oratory, and finding by ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... Cyrus announced his purpose. The Greek soldiers were angry with their generals for having, as they supposed, wilfully misled them, but were mollified by promise of large rewards. One of the commanders, Menon, won the approval of Cyrus by being the first to lead his own contingent across the Euphrates on his own initiative. The advance was now conducted by forced marches ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... to your foster brother Thorgils, that I am your uncle, or that I know your name and kin; for it is a law held sacred in Gardarike that no one of royal birth shall abide in the land without the sanction of King Valdemar. If it be known that I am wilfully breaking that law, then both you and I will fall into ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... wish that it were in their own hands, and this led to a statement of the condition of affairs, the same to which a year before he had been wilfully deaf, and to which he now attended chiefly for the sake of gratifying his father, though he better understood what depended on it. At least, it was making the Earl insensible to the space they were traversing, and the black ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they're a nuisance, that's true, with all of their racket and noise, But I'd rather my personal pleasures be lost than to give up my girls and my boys. Not always they're perfectly good; there are times when they're wilfully bad, But I'd rather be worried by youngsters of mine than lonely ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... court-martial, composed of the officers, and presided over by myself, arraigned and tried the scoundrels in much less time than regular boards ordinarily spend in such investigations. During the inquiry, we ascertained beyond doubt that the death of the mate was due to false play. He had been wilfully murdered, as a preliminary to the assault on me, for his colossal stature and powerful muscles would have made him a dangerous adversary in the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... save me from the danger I wilfully determined not to avoid. It rained so heavily last evening that the syrens stayed ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... her anger soon abated. A not too convincing light-heartedness took the place of this stormy ebullition. If Windebank had been more skilled in the mechanism of a woman's heart, he would have promptly divined the girl's gaiety had been wilfully assumed, in order to conceal from herself the anxiety that Windebank's words, with reference to the proper conduct of a true lover, had inspired. By the time they had reached her door, she had expended her fund of forced gaiety; she was again the subdued Mavis whom trouble had fashioned. She thanked ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... much. We were liberally abused for our discountenance of this marriage, and charged with wilfully falsifying facts, because we insisted that this affair was in contemplation, and would yet go off. Prof. Allen denied it, and others thought that they had the most positive assurance from his statements that the amalgamation wedding was a fiction. But now, after he and his white brethren have liberally ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... 1831 is chiefly remarkable for the riotous destruction committed on the fences and banks of the enclosures, recorded by Mr. Machen as follows:—"In May, 1831, several of the single trees planted near Parkend, and on Breem's Eaves, were wilfully cut off in the night, and no discovery was made of the offenders. In the end of May a part of the wall of Oaken Hill Enclosure was thrown down in the night. When the workmen were rebuilding it, some of the colliers passing by threw out hints that ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... number of pretty and ingenious things one does (not wear out in honourable wear and tear, but) utterly lose, and wilfully destroy, in one's young days—things that would have given pleasure to so many more young eyes, if they had been kept a little longer—things that one would so value in later years, if some of them had ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... appear to have been on the side of Goeze, decides ultimately, after his own examination, in favor of Wetstein, as regards the value of the MSS. employed; not however as relates to the grave charge of wilfully accommodating the Greek text to the Vulgate. See the grounds and merits of the controversy, apud Michaelis, Introduction to the New Testament, translated by Marsh, vol. ii. part 1, chap. 12, sec. 1; ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... say that our Sarah, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Blake, wilfully broke the Sabbath by ironing?" Concentrated horror appeared on Kitty's ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... by the way in which she tried to put me off, changing the conversation whenever I got on to the forbidden ground, and suggesting various irrelevant queries on my endeavouring again to chain her wilfully-erratic attention down to the one topic that I ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... opinion that "the man, who, after reading this lucid exposition of British aggressions, can blame his own government—can accuse the administration of a want of forbearance, and a wish to provoke a war with England without cause, must be wilfully blind or perversely foolish." This recalls at once the circumstances of the time, shortly after the beginning of Madison's administration, and during the Embargo. Democracy was odious in New England, where the prostration of her commercial interests, the ruin of many and serious injury of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... it up without permitting the escape of the winged bird, she considered a moment, then deliberately murdered it by giving it a severe crunch, and afterwards brought away both together. This was the only known instance of her ever having wilfully injured any game." Here we have reason though not quite perfect, for the retriever might have brought the wounded bird first and then returned for the dead one, as in the case of the two wild-ducks. ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... the north star was somewhat wilfully shifting from the magnetic pole, now to a distance of 5 deg. and then of 10 deg., the calculations of modern astronomers have gauged the polar distance existing in 1492 at 3 deg. 28', as against the 1 deg. 20' of to-day. The confusion of Columbus was very like his confounding an old world ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... me four years ago, as kind as Sir Henry Royson would permit you to be towards one who had wilfully and irreparably insulted him. My feelings with regard to him have undergone no change. He may be dead, for all I know, or care. But you, I suppose, are still the trusted solicitor of the Cuddesham estate, and ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... safer, but I was powerfully drawn towards the horse: he seemed to me to be sensible that he had a character to lose, and to possess too high an intelligence wilfully to forfeit his testimonials. With hardly a second thought, I engaged him for ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... Corona reflected mournfully. But it did not matter; nothing mattered. She saw Charlotta sally forth into the garden with a determined, do-or-die expression surmounting her freckles, without feeling interest enough to go and make sure that she did not root out all the late asters in her tardy and wilfully postponed warfare on weeds. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... himself, though when he took the legal steps he was obliged to, it seemed to him that he was wilfully urging on the persecution of that poor young girl and that poor old maid. It was really ghastly to go through the form of indicting a man who, so far as any one could prove to the contrary, had passed with his sins before the tribunal ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... distresses! For those of his friends were ever his. But his heart bleeds in secret for them. A feeling heart is a blessing that no one, who has it, would be without; and it is a moral security of innocence; since the heart that is able to partake of the distress of another, cannot wilfully give it. ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... morality would have made out the present one; but, as it was, the image of Miss Dacre hovered above our hero as his guardian genius. He despaired of ever obtaining her; but yet he determined not wilfully to crush all hope. Some great effort must be made to right his position. Lady Aphrodite must not be deserted: the very thought increased his fever. He wrote, to gain time; but another billet, in immediate ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... your heart bleed, bah!—and when you shoot down Belgian hostages and do to death an English nurse? All that never seems to strike you. You go on thinking of yourself as a holy humble man whom everybody wilfully mistakes for a bully and a tyrant. Well, you can't fool everybody all the time, you know, and in this case it happens that everybody has got some sound horse-sense in his head. Who wanted to hurt you? You'd put ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... urge you to come to Switzerland, where you will at least find one firm and constant friend, to whom your interests will be always dear—by whom your feelings will never wilfully be injured. From none can you expect this but me—all else are unfeeling, or selfish, or have beloved friends of their own, as Mrs. B[oinville], to whom their ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... gulp and tried a quieter tack. "I beg your pardon, ma'am," says he, "but you seemed to be wilfully misunderstanding me. Let us confine ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cakes—they are very celebrated!" Giovanni said it with an aggrieved air that made Nina laugh. As though wilfully misunderstanding her, he turned ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... so, and I am sure I did not err in my judgment. But folly is blind, and faction wilfully shuts her eyes against the most evident truths that cross her designs, as she believes any lies, however palpable and absurd, that ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... accords To his language the license to outrage his soul, Is controll'd by the words he disdains to control. And, therefore, he seem'd in the deeds of each day The light code proclaim'd on his lips to obey; And, the slave of each whim, follow'd wilfully aught That perchance fool'd the fancy, or flatter'd the thought. Yet, indeed, deep within him, the spirits of truth, Vast, vague aspirations, the powers of his youth, Lived and breathed, and made moan—stirr'd themselves—strove to start Into ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... bank-accounts. They strive toward goals which to them are more worth while—self-improvement, for instance, spiritual growth being a better term. Of such men were the world's acknowledged saviors. A man who can wilfully thrust oars against the current of a stream flowing currency-wise, in such a way as to force himself into a back eddy or pool more or less stagnant, is a man pronouncedly great among men. The world is loath to recognize ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... so? Do you believe that a young, innocent, sheltered girl, so pretty and so magnetic that she attracts immediate attention wherever she goes, who has starved for pretty things and a good time, and suddenly finds them within her reach, whose parents wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that she's growing up, and boast that 'they've kept everything from her'—and then let her go wherever she chooses, with that pitiful lack of armor, doesn't deserve another chance? And I think if you had stayed with her ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... be alleged, by such as are little versed therein; this sentence shall be thus explained: this releasement shall be thus pretended: all is but seemingly to stop the mouth of conscience, that saith, they must both make and pay vows unto God. Yet the wilfully ignorant will neglect it; the wretchedly profane will contemn it; the wickedly politic will avoid it; so the heart shall be left to its own swing, open to all corruption that breaks in like a flood. For the prevention whereof, let us ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... from the fact next stated, that one of the praetors had to undertake a special vow if the State should survive for ten years. These measures, ordered by the books, "magna ex parte levaverant religione animos." Unfortunately, the wayward consul Flaminius spoilt their endeavours by wilfully neglecting his religious duties at the Capitol, and also at the Alban mount, where he should have presided at the Latin festival, and hurrying secretly to the seat of war, lest his command should be ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... others right by every road." (Inferno, I. 18.) "The spiritual and unintelligible Sun, which is God." (Convito, Tr. III. c. 12) His light "enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world," but his dwelling is in the heavens. He who wilfully deprives himself of this light is spiritually dead in sin. So when in Mars he beholds the glorified spirits of the martyrs he exclaims, "O Elios, who so arrayest them!" (Paradiso, XIV. 96.) Blanc (Vocabolario, sub ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... rich in the New World, appeared more charming than brow of milk or cheek of rose.[EN30] There were few changes. A half-peasant Bedawi had planted a strip of barley near the camping place; the late floods had shifted the course of the waters; more date-trees had been wilfully burned; a big block of quartz, brother to that which we had broken, had been carried off; and where several of the old furnaces formerly stood, deep holes, dug by the "money-hunter," now yawned. I again examined the two large fragments of the broken barrage, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... influence, and his reputation for integrity. Employing all these, yet never compromising one of them, he influenced men by their virtues, or their vices, with equal indifference. He was incapable of meanness; he never wilfully entrapped a friend, or even an enemy, into a disastrous speculation; only, if the venture proved unsuccessful, he happened to get out and leave the others in it. But in financial speculations, as in battles, there must be what is called ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... piteously, and it was her complete immunity from him that she prayed for, but he chose wilfully to misunderstand her. The passion faded from his eyes, giving place to a ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... my idea of the man whom many call a cynic, but whom I regard as one of the most soft-hearted of human beings, sweet as Charity itself, who went about the world dropping pearls, doing good, and never wilfully inflicting a wound. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... sufficed to enable her to live removed from such discomforts; but she was one of those women who regard it as a duty to leave something behind them,—even though it be left to those who do not at all want it; and Lady Macleod was a woman who wilfully neglected no duty. So she pinched herself, and inhaled the effluvia of the stables, and squabbled with the cabmen, in order that she might bequeath a thousand pounds or two to some Lady Midlothian, who cared, perhaps, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... sports we then gave way to. Lizzie continuing to harp on the extraordinary enjoyment the whipping had procured her, after it was over, fired the imagination of Mary, until she was wound up to a pitch of actually longing to be whipped. In such a case it was easy to incur the penalty; she had but wilfully to neglect her studies, and she was sure to get it. This she accordingly did, and it resulted as before. When released, she rushed to the summer house, and without any preliminaries, called upon me to fuck her directly; and a very similar ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... espies, and contemns the Contradictions of others, is yet wilfully attach'd to several himself, which he will sometimes persue through a long Course of his own Mortification.—It may be often observ'd, that he will avoid the Company he likes, for fear they should think he ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... gave, Besmear with flattery, Although, among themselves, at times, They laugh at thee. But I will not to such low arts descend, Though envy it would be for me, The rest to imitate, And, raving, wilfully, To make my song more pleasing to thy ears: But I will sooner far reveal, As clearly as I can, the deep disdain That I for thee within my bosom feel; Although I know, oblivion Awaits the man who holds his age in scorn: But this misfortune, which I share ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... evidence lay upon the statement of one of his own mates, an Irishman and a Catholic, which might increase his tendency to superstition, but in other respects a veracious, honest, and sensible person, whom Captain ——had no reason to suspect would wilfully deceive him. He affirmed to Captain S—— with the deepest obtestations, that the spectre of the murdered man appeared to him almost nightly, took him from his place in the vessel, and, according to his own expression, worried his life out. He made these communications with a degree of horror which ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... that you are interested in topics of this sort, and so send it along with an apology for the amount of your valuable time which I am so wilfully wasting. ...
— A Jolly by Josh • "Josh"
... was spilled over the conflict between religion and science. It was only a conflict between the old religion and its new form, between the gray dawn and the growing day. Our fathers were not wilfully false, holding on to darkness when the light came; but they so long had held sacred the pictures seen in twilight they were loath to give them up for those of ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... to understand how Mr. Ruskin, for example, can let such scenes and characters hide from his view the kindness, gentleness, and pity of Thackeray's nature. The Letters must open all eyes that are not wilfully closed, and should at last ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... what you are thinking," returns she, struggling with her mortification. "And it is very hard of you. Just because you don't care to go anywhere, you think I oughtn't to care either. That is what is so selfish about people who are old. You," wilfully, "are just as ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... of such other points of the said boundary as they may deem proper. And both parties agree to consider such map and declaration as finally and conclusively fixing the said boundary. And in the event of the said Commissioners differing or both or either of them refusing, declining, or wilfully omitting to act, such reports, declarations, or statements shall be made by them, or either of them, and such reference to a friendly sovereign or state shall be made in all respects, as in the latter part ...
— First History of New Brunswick • Peter Fisher
... and say what I could to help he "whosoever wills," also to use my influence in certain quarters for the betterment of the children prisoners, not one of whom but doubtless had been cheated out of his birthright by untutored, ofttimes wilfully ignorant parents or guardians. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... Equality 68 is an excellent thing, since the Athenians while they were ruled by despots were not better in war that any of those who dwelt about them, whereas after they had got rid of despots they became far the first. This proves that when they were kept down they were wilfully slack, because they were working for a master, whereas when they had been set free each one was eager to ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... that the servants, with whom she had left them, were quiet steady persons, who would not allow them to do what was wrong without speaking to them; and then Reuben was such an universal favourite, that she felt sure no one would be wilfully unkind to him. But above all, Mrs. Mortimer trusted her children with Him who "knoweth our frame and remembereth we are but ...
— Brotherly Love - Shewing That As Merely Human It May Not Always Be Depended Upon • Mrs. Sherwood
... those who have never tried it. All people, perhaps, are not affected exactly alike, and Captain Flower, while admitting the lightness, would have disdainfully contested any charge of buoyancy. Against this objection it may be said, that he was not a model patient, and had on several occasions wilfully taken steps to remove ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... the truth, the truth, Have I merited woe at your tapering hands, Have you wilfully burst love's twining strands, And cast to the ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova." Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their capabilities,[369] the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... danger, and from whom; what enemy, Late fallen himself from Heaven, is plotting now The fall of others from like state of bliss; By violence? no, for that shall be withstood; But by deceit and lies: This let him know, Lest, wilfully transgressing, he pretend Surprisal, unadmonished, unforewarned. So spake the Eternal Father, and fulfilled All justice: Nor delayed the winged Saint After his charge received; but from among Thousand celestial Ardours, where ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... moreover, 'When all such beasts as these are cast out of Mansoul, what a goodly town will it be then!' 'Then,' said Mr. Moderate, 'it is not my manner to pass my judgment with rashness; but for these their crimes are so notorious, and the witness so palpable, that that man must be wilfully blind who saith the prisoners ought not to die.' 'Blessed be God,' said Mr. Thankful, 'that the traitors are in safe custody.' 'And I join with you in this upon my bare knees,' said Mr. Humble. 'I am glad also,' said ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... they soon learnt to their disgust and indignation that they were only to receive one month's pay, a miserable pittance to men long in want. On the smouldering embers of mutiny someone wilfully, or from mere expediency, threw the spark: "Go to the British Embassy and demand pay; there is lots of money there." The idea caught like wildfire, and the whole mass of soldiery dashed off to the Embassy, situated only a few ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... yet he would play false on the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd Girl's case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, and invented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of mind; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... stared at him. "Good God, man, what do you take me for? A man doesn't wilfully hurt his wife—the woman he loves. And to hurt Toni would be ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... belief in masses and holy water had far other springs; and this celebrated page of his is but an argument for others, a last desperate snatch at a weapon against the hardness of the unbelieving heart. We feel that a faith in masses and holy water adopted wilfully after such a mechanical calculation would lack the inner soul of faith's reality; and if we were ourselves in the place of the Deity, we should probably take particular pleasure in cutting off believers of this pattern from their infinite reward. It is evident that unless there be some ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Is it a grievous offense wilfully to conceal a mortal sin in Confession? A. It is a grievous offense wilfully to conceal a mortal sin in Confession, because we thereby tell a lie to the Holy Ghost, and ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 2 (of 4) • Anonymous
... little taste that I thought him a fool, and so I left him to talk to his dear plants, while I shot partridges for our supper. We spent six days in the woods, and the little man filled his black wallet with all sorts of rubbish, as if he wilfully shut his eyes to the beautiful flowers, and chose only to admire ugly, insignificant plants that everybody else passes by without noticing, and which, often as I had been in the woods, I never had observed before. I never pursued a deer ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... enacted by the authority aforesaid, that from and after the said [first day of July] if any captain, or other officer on board any of his majesty's ships of war, shall wilfully spring, carry away, or lose any mast or masts of any such ship [Footnote: Left out, or ships.], or shall make any false pretence or excuse for leaving the station on which such ship or ships shall be appointed to cruise, or shall return into port before the expiration of the term appointed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... quite true—I have treated you badly. I have behaved wilfully and foolishly. But that was no ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the reaction? Compunction at incipient crime, and gratitude to find its punishment so mercifully speedy, so lenient, so discriminative? I fear that if ever he had these thoughts at all, he chased them wilfully away: his disappointment, far from being softened into patience, was sharpened to a feeling of revenge at fate; and all his hope now was—such another chance, gold, more gold, never mind how; more gold, he burnt for gold, he ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... For lewed* people love tales old; *unlearned Such thinges can they well report and hold. What? trowe ye, that whiles I may preach And winne gold and silver for* I teach, *because That I will live in povert' wilfully? Nay, nay, I thought it never truely. For I will preach and beg in sundry lands; I will not do no labour with mine hands, Nor make baskets for to live thereby, Because I will not beggen idlely. I will none of the apostles counterfeit;* *imitate (in poverty) I will have money, wool, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... that, at last, that lad will do something to better himself in life, and that the Pendennises will take a good place in the world. And is he the only one, who in his progress through this dark life goes wilfully or fatally astray, whilst the natural truth and love which should illumine him grow dim in the poisoned air, and suffice to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... uniformed with all their external characteristics. We do not mean that great poetic geniuses may not have influenced thought, (though we think it would be difficult to show how Shakspeare had done so, directly and wilfully,) but that they have not infected ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... of her. That, however, is not a matter of very great moment, for I believe I have got out of her practically everything that I need; the point that is of importance is that she has been set on fire, either wilfully or accidentally, by a party of natives, who are at this moment on board her. There are some ten or a dozen of them, so far as I can make out, and it seems pretty clear that they have come here on a looting expedition, organised, as likely as not, by those fellows ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... submitting to be your lover forfeited that respect you were wont to pay me as a guardian? O do not, sir, accuse me of such black ingratitude, replied she; heaven knows with what sincere and humble duty I regard you, and that I would sooner die than wilfully offend you; but if I am so unfortunate as not to be able to obey you in this last command, impute it, I beseech you, to my ill fate, and rather pity ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... man had recited "Gunga Din" and, wilfully misinterpreting the gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had followed it with "Fuzzy-Wuzzy." His sister—these things run in families—had sung "My Little Gray Home in the ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... can't have me, Sir Tilton, I belong to the heir of the house for the last dance," she said, wilfully misconstruing his meaning, so gaining time, lost ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... Cunningham would have found if he had read Mr. Booth's book with attention. And, if he will bestow equal pains on my second letter, he will discover that he has interpolated the word "wilfully" in his statement of my "argument," which runs thus: "Shutting his eyes to the necessary consequences of the struggle for life, the existence of which he admits as fully as any Darwinian, Mr. Booth ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... among the mountains, with the snow piled before his door and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he has wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not so apt to shudder at a touch of chill. He came for that, he looked for it, and he throws it from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... tools were to be provided. Owing to the long distance between California and the City of Mexico, there was much confusion as to how the changes should be brought about. There have been many charges made, alleging that the padres wilfully allowed the Mission property to go to ruin, when they were deprived of its control. This ruin would better be attributed to the general demoralization of the times than to any definite policy. For it must be remembered that the political ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... should arise, the latter would have a right to act according to his discretion; but it must always be at his peril, if he cannot prove, at least, that it appeared to be absolutely necessary; still more so, if he manifestly breaks through, wilfully or perversely, the very orders which himself received from his superior officer, and is consequently bound to see ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... people, the Jews, by them to be handed on to Christianity. Outside the borders of this Goshen the world had sunk into the darkness of Egypt. Where analogies between savage cults and the Christian religions were observed, they were explained as degradations; the heathen had somehow wilfully "lost the light." Our business was not to study but, exclusively, to convert them, to root out superstition and carry the torch of revelation to "Souls in heathen darkness lying." To us nowadays it is a commonplace of anthropological ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... usage is seen in the animal being quite unable to move its leg: inflammation has set up in the hip-joint. I am afraid that several bruises which have festered on the camels, and were to me unaccountable, have been wilfully bestowed. This same Pando and another left Zanzibar drunk: he then stole a pair of socks from me, and has otherwise been perfectly useless, even a pimple on his leg was an excuse for doing nothing for many days. We had to leave ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... tokens and loathly boils which break out upon the flesh of the plague-stricken are less revolting to humanity than the cruelty of those who minister to the sick, and whose only desire is to profit by the miseries that surround them; wretches so vile that they have been known wilfully to convey the seeds of death from house to house, in order to infect the sound, and so enlarge their area of gains. It was an artful device of those plunderers to paint the red cross on the door, and thus scare away any visitor who might have discovered their depredations. But ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... drink in a bad soldier," he said, "but you helped a prisoner to escape. Come, man, we may both be dead to-morrow, and I'd like to feel that no soldier in my army is wilfully a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Had she been wilfully deceived? had she been taking the counsel of a jealous woman about her husband? Had not Camilla assured her that the object of his first love was not in the country? Ay; but when that was spoken Camilla herself was in London, and Cecil knew ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sporting with riddles which it is not worth while to divine."(1) Barth, however, also recognises amidst these confusions, "the inquietude of a heart deeply stirred, which seeks truth and redemption in prayer". Such is the natural judgment of the clear French intellect on the wilfully obscure, tormented ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... can be set to the growth which may, and which God intends should, result wherever the human will is consentient. While, therefore, no man can claim merit in the sight of God, but must acknowledge his absolute dependency upon divine grace, no one can escape loss or blame if he wilfully frustrates God's design of mercy. Whatever mystery may attend the subject of God's sovereign grace, the Bible never presents it as negating the entire freedom of man to give or withhold response to the gift and leading of the ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... who had poured tea at Mrs. Westley's, and talked to all those refined people, who seemed to admire her and make much of her, as if she were one of them. Before, she had escaped from the toils of that folly of the past by disowning it; but now, she had voluntarily made it hers. She had wilfully entangled herself in its toils; they seemed to trip her steps, and make her stumble on the stairs as if they were tangible things. She had knowingly suffered such a man as that, whose commonness of soul she had always instinctively felt, to ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... the other oar, and secured it with another piece of the painter; and now we had a sort of sail, the mere sight of which, even, was a small satisfaction to us, since the shirts being white they must needs make a good mark upon the water, something not to be missed, unless wilfully, by ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... they could get rooms. Well now, I had my drawing-room floor empty that week, and as it was only for two or three days that they wanted rooms I offered to take Mr. Chatfield and the young man in. Of course, if I'd known how ill he was, I shouldn't. What I understood—and mind you, I don't say they wilfully deceived me, for I don't think they did—what I understood was that the young man simply wanted a real good rest. But he was evidently a deal worse than what even Dr. Valdey thought. He'd stopped at Dr. Valdey's surgery while Mr. Chatfield went to see about rooms, and they ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... people in such crimes? If you have so far forgotten yourselves, the commands of God, and the curse that awaits you and those who deceive themselves the same way; reflect, before it be too late, on the evil into which you have willingly, wilfully, and without the least reasonable excuse, fallen, and on the guilt that must of necessity attach to your consciences thereby. Should you never meet those you encouraged to sin in this world, and therefore never have an opportunity of warning them of their danger, yet must you meet at ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb
... eating, as such cankers do, from his moral system into the physical frame, which is but the shadow of the former. They looked for the root of this trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic bliss,—wilfully shattered by himself,—but could not be satisfied of its existence there. Some thought that their once brilliant friend was in an incipient stage of insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps been the forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight and gradual decline. From ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a sort of indignation with the careless woman who leaves in a cab a vanity-bag with all her jewels in it. Nature had made him a butt, but had denied him insensibility. He writhed under the jokes, practical and otherwise, which were perpetually made at his expense, and yet never ceased, it seemed wilfully, to expose himself to them. He was constantly wounded, and yet his good-nature was such that he could not bear malice: the viper might sting him, but he never learned by experience, and had no sooner recovered ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... ambassadors, thus plotting treason, stratagem, and massacre, is a dark and dreary one. The description of English sufferings for conscience' sake, under the Protestant Elizabeth, is even more painful; for it had unfortunately too much, of truth, although as wilfully darkened and exaggerated as could be done by religious hatred and Spanish bombast. The Queen was surrounded by legions of deadly enemies. Spain, the Pope, the League, were united in one perpetual conspiracy against her; and they relied on the cooperation of those ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to him, as he walked down the crowded thoroughfare, that some reflection of his own self-contempt was visible in the countenances of the men and women who were hurrying past him. Wherever he looked, he was acutely conscious of it. In his heart he felt the bitter sense of shame of a man who wilfully succumbs to weakness. Yet that night he made ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... eyes to beauties. The critic does his utmost to blight genius in its infancy; that which rises in spite of him he will not see; and then he complains of the decline of literature. In like manner, these cankers of society complain of human nature and society, when they have wilfully debarred themselves from all the good they contain, and done their utmost to blight their own happiness and that of all around them. Misanthropy is sometimes the product of disappointed benevolence; but it is more frequently the offspring of overweening and mortified vanity, quarrelling with the ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... secret possessed by a person of the last class in which a young lady would seek a confidant, and at the mercy of one who was by profession gossip-general to the whole neighbourhood, gave her acute agony. She had no reason, indeed, to suppose that the old man would wilfully do anything to hurt her feelings, much less to injure her; but the mere freedom of speaking to her upon such a subject, showed, as might have been expected, a total absence of delicacy; and what ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... equally a human creature, but merely of a different complexion, is disgraceful to humanity, and degrading in the highest degree to the laws and principles of a free Christian, and enlightened country, be it enacted, &c., that if any person shall hereafter be guilty of wilfully and maliciously killing a slave, such offender shall, upon the first conviction thereof, be adjudged guilty of murder, and shall suffer the same punishment as if he had killed a free man; Provided always, this act shall not extend to the person killing a slave outlawed ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... or poor, shall use the streets to the full extent that I do, but if it be proposed that my use shall be limited in order that some others may for their private purposes have more than an equal use with me, my feeling is not one of envy but of indignation. So I can appreciate that if I wilfully or through carelessness injure another I should make full compensation, and hence can cheerfully submit to the law compelling me to do so; but if the law undertakes to exempt any other person from a similar liability, I feel a keen sense of wrong. Conversely, ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... necessary to my existence. Were I to quit the Convent, He never would forgive me; nor can I think that on his deathbed He would leave me his curse, without shuddering at the very idea. Besides, I am conscious myself, that my vows are binding: Wilfully did I contract my engagement with heaven; I cannot break it without a crime. Then banish from your mind the idea of our being ever united. I am devoted to religion; and however I may grieve at our separation, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... becomes heroic, and, as it were, inspired—of scorn for meanness, hypocrisy, ignorance—of esteem, genuine and earnest, for the Holy Scriptures, and for the more moderate of the Reformers who were spreading the Scriptures in Europe,—and all this great light wilfully hidden, not under a bushel, but under a dunghill. He is somewhat like Socrates in face, and in character likewise; in him, as in Socrates, the demigod and the satyr, the man and the ape, are struggling for the mastery. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... have been. The former require simple faith. The latter calls upon you to judge for yourself, and form your own conclusions. The former does not intend to be prescient, nor the latter accurate. Research is the weapon used by the former; observation by the latter. Either may be false,—wilfully false; as also may either be steadfastly true. As to that, the reader must judge for himself. But the man who writes currente calamo, who works with a rapidity which will not admit of accuracy, may be as true, and in one sense ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... therefore having myself now written this history of myself, notwithstanding my protestation that I have not in anything wilfully gone against the truth, I expect no more credit from the reader than the self-evidencing light of the matter, with concurrent rational advantages from persons, and things, and other witnesses, shall constrain ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... linked together the twin maladies of over-work and the unemployed. It is possible that among the comfortable classes there are still to be found those who believe that the unemployed consist only of the wilfully idle and worthless residuum parading a false grievance to secure sympathy and pecuniary aid, and who hold that if a man really wants to work he can always do so. This idle theory is contradicted by abundant facts. The official figures published by the Board of Trade gives the ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... Hill, alias John the Painter, (for wilfully setting Fire to the King's Rope House, at Portsmouth.) Before Mr. Baron Hotham, at the Assize at ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... gone, the fairy king, who with little Puck had been listening to their quarrels, said to him: 'This is your negligence, Puck; or did you do this wilfully?' 'Believe me, king of shadows,' answered Puck, 'it was a mistake; did not you tell me I should know the man by his Athenian garments? However, I am not sorry this has happened, for I think their jangling makes excellent sport.' 'You heard,' said Oberon, 'that Demetrius and Lysander ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... mother, the sobs and tears of the April day had been wilfully misleading demonstrations, for by ten o'clock the whole face of nature wore a sun-sweetened smile that was positively entrancing. The young April world seemed to spring dripping from a bath that glistened all over with crystal ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... history of human errors two classes of impostors, of very different characters, present themselves to our notice—those who wilfully deluded their species, and those who permitted their species to delude themselves. The first of those classes consisted of the selfish tyrants who upheld an unjust supremacy by systematic delusions, and of grovelling mountebanks who quenched their avaricious thirst at the fountains ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... observe the mingled play of politeness, apprehension, and alarm in the actions of a Brahman shopkeeper at the appearance of a blundering, but withal well-meaning Sahib, among his wares. Knowing, from long experience, that the Englishman would on no account wilfully injure his property or trample wantonly on his caste prejudices, he is at his wits' end to comport himself deferentially and at the same time prevent anything from being handled. Money has to be placed where the Brahman can pick it up without incurring ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... for him, and to fit his softer nature to hers. Yet it seemed to him that there had always been certain conditions implied in this subjection of his, and that she was breaking them. He could not have been fetching and carrying all these years for a woman who could go on wilfully appropriating money that did not belong to her,—who could even speak with callous indifference of the prospect of turning out her niece ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hardly waited till my father's back was turned before they rated the stepson. I am ashamed—my heart is sore to think how I fell into the fashion of the family, and slighted my poor orphan step- brother. I don't think I ever scouted him, or was wilfully ill-natured to him; but the habit of being considered in all things, and being treated as something uncommon and superior, made me insolent in my prosperity, and I exacted more than Gregory was always willing ...
— The Half-Brothers • Elizabeth Gaskell
... photographs—greatly owing to being almost certain that I should bring the skulls themselves safely back to Europe. But the unexpected always happens. We shall see later on how—after having carried those fossils safely for several months—they were, unknown to me, wilfully flung, together with a quantity of provisions, into a deep part of the Arinos River by my companions, and ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... now bid thee farewell for the rest of the day, the time is drawing nigh for us to repair to the place of preaching; before we leave thee alone, however, I should wish to ask thee a question: Didst thou seek thy own destruction yesterday, and didst thou wilfully take that poison?" "No," said I; "had I known there had been poison in the cake, I certainly should not have taken it." "And who gave it thee?" said Peter. "An enemy of mine," I replied. "Who is thy enemy?" "An Egyptian sorceress and poisonmonger." "Thy enemy is a female. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... men, liable to be misled by intrigue or passion, and therefore, in a public sense, not to be credited without other evidence than their own assertions. Let an exemplary INSCRIPTION on the tomb of the minister of that day serve therefore to teach all ministers, never wilfully to depart in the most indifferent act of public policy from THE TRUTH; and warn them to pause before they commit the extensive interests of nations, while they or the people are under the influence of passion. Alas! what frightful mischiefs might have been averted if these considerations ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... detecting the signs which subtly indicate the decay of power in creative intellects. We sympathize still less in the stupid and ungenerous judgments of those who find a still meaner delight in wilfully asserting that the last book of a popular writer is unworthy of the genius which produced his first. In our opinion, "Great Expectations" is a work which proves that we may expect from Dickens a series of romances far exceeding in power and artistic skill the productions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... They do not wilfully resist the good. They are much more tender, docile, trustful and loving. The Grace of God has less to overcome in them. They are more easily reached, and thus are fit subjects to be brought into the kingdom of God. In this sense only can it be said, ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... wrong-going, in any direction that I have indicated, they will acknowledge that I had reason in what I wrote. If they discern no such indications, they will consider me altogether mistaken - but not wilfully. ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... are consciously exercising every day, is scornfully denied and derided. The situation is sadly ludicrous from the point of view of those who appreciate the prospects of evolution, because mankind is thus wilfully holding at arm's length, the knowledge that is essential to its own ulterior progress. The maximum cultivation of which the human intellect is susceptible while it denies itself all the resources of its higher spiritual consciousness, can ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... she reached her nest and found But two birds there alone, And heard that Downy to the pond So wilfully had flown, ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... could wish, is all the return I can make you. Will you give me leave to say how I would desire to stand in your memory? As one, who was truly sensible of the honour you did him, though he was too proud to be vain upon it; as one, who was neither assuming, officious, nor teasing; who never wilfully misrepresented persons or facts to you, nor consulted his passions when he gave a character; and lastly, as one, whose indiscretions proceeded altogether from a weak head, and not an ill heart. I will add one thing more, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... have to gather information at the bayonet's point at a loss to the Empire in men, money, and in prestige. If our commanders blunder, who is to blame but the criminally negligent officials who have supplied them with false or foolish data to work upon? The Empire has been betrayed, either wilfully or through crass idleness upon the part of men who have dipped deeply into the Empire's coffers, and the nation should demand their impeachment, apart from their position, place, or power, and punishment of the most drastic kind should follow speedily ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... will show. My dear Vivian, you have now spent upwards of a year under this roof, and your conduct has been as correct as the most rigid parent might require. I have not wished to interfere with the progress of your mind, and I regret it. I have been negligent, but not wilfully so. I do regret it; because, whatever may be your powers, Vivian, I at least have the advantage of experience. I see you smile at a word which I so often use. Well, well, were I to talk to you for ever, you would ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... him now; he was no longer a man apart from them, whose health had been preserved by some sort of charm, but one of themselves. And the awful curse had not fallen on him by accident, as it had fallen upon them, but he had sought it, wilfully, deliberately, for their sakes. Thus, out of his very distress, came a new joy ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... whereupon the matter was laid before him in all its details. He was not slow in taking a fair view of it, and spoke well and eloquently in my behalf—insisting on the improbability that a person of my habits and position would be wilfully mixed up with a transaction like that of which it appeared I was suspected—adding, that as he was fully convinced of my innocence, he was ready to enter into any surety with respect to my appearance at any time to answer anything ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the matter in its proper light, and she has consented to receive all my letters, and if mother writes, to give her to understand that I am safe within the convent walls. It is very good of her, for I know the awful risk she is wilfully incurring so as to help me out ...
— Muslin • George Moore |
