"Fickle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you all the sympathy you stand in need of,—I promise it! My poor, dear Sydney!—don't be so absurd! Do you think that I don't know you? You're the best of friends, and the worst of lovers,—as the one, so true; so fickle as the other. To my certain knowledge, with how many girls have you been in love,—and out again. It is true that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, you have never been in love with me before,—but that's the merest accident. Believe me, my dear, dear Sydney, you'll be in love with someone ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... operated like a factory? Can fickle nature be offset and crops be brought to maturity upon ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... "With us, I think that is true. Luck is more fickle than a woman and we like not the surprise. But our effort is to be prepared ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... "O fickle, terror-stricken fools!" he exclaimed—"O thankless and disloyal people! What!—ye WILL see me now? ... ye WILL hear me? ... Aye! but who shall answer for your obedience to my words! Nay, is it possible that I, your country's chosen Chief Minstrel, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... cried. "It was the Gorbals Die-Hards. There stands the man that done it.... Ye'll no' fickle Thomas Yownie." ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... to New York earlier than usual, worked steadily at my profession and with increasing success, and began to accept opportunities (which I had previously declined) of making myself personally known to the great, impressible, fickle, tyrannical public. One or two of my speeches in the hall of the Cooper Institute, on various occasions—as you may perhaps remember—gave me a good headway with the party, and were the chief cause of my nomination for the State office which I still hold. ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... but fickle lady-moon, Why must thy full form ever wane? O love! O friendship! why so soon Must your sweet light recede again? I wake me in the dead of night, And start,—for through the misty gloom Red Hecate stares—a boding sight!— Looks in, but never ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... forecastle, not that of the metal trough with an engine in the middle and mechanics sweating in her depths. When the Atlantic packet was compelled to abdicate, it was the beginning of the end. After all, her master was the fickle wind, for a slashing outward passage might be followed by weeks of beating home to the westward. Steadily forging ahead to the beat of her paddles or the thrash of her screw, the steamer even of that day was far more dependable than the sailing vessel. The Lightning clipper ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... may I reach, At the flash of Death's sharp sickle, Just in deed, of steadfast speech, Not, as now, infirm and fickle. ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... daughter of a Trojan priest. Pandarus, Cressida's uncle, acts as go-between for the lovers. Just as the suit of Troilus is crowned with success, Cressida, from motives of policy, is forced to join her father Calchas, who is in the camp of the besieging Greeks. Here her fickle and sensuous nature reveals itself rapidly. She yields to {173} the love of the Greek commander Diomed and promises to become his mistress. Troilus learns of this, consigns her to oblivion, and attempts, but unsuccessfully, ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... proud, effeminate and carefully adorned like women. They said that the Germans were furious and obscene at their feasts; the Normans vain and boastful; the Poitevins traitors and always adventurers. The Burgundians they considered vulgar and stupid. The Bretons were reputed to be fickle and changeable, and were often reproached for the death of Arthur. The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel; ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... court is sure to teach wisdom and indifference to human glories. In our France of the nineteenth century, fickle as it has been, inconstant, fertile in revolutions, recantations, and changes of every sort, this lesson is more impressive than it has been at any period of our history. Never has Providence shown more ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... my heart went out in love to this little book, no change of scene or of custom no allurement of fashion, no demand of mature years, has abated that love. And herein is exemplified the advantage which the love of books has over the other kinds of love. Women are by nature fickle, and so are men; their friendships are liable to dissipation at the merest provocation or ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... Behold how fickle Fortune the great ULYSSES treats, Gives him victories in war-time, in peace heaps up defeats. His Southern laurels linger a coronet of praise; But a friendly Senate ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... demonstrates, the more eager the people are to give support to his undertakings if they are convinced that he has their best welfare as his goal. There is no public confidence equal to that of the American public, once it is obtained. It is fickle, of course, as are all publics, but fickle only toward the man who cannot ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... day was the Sabbath, thirty-six hours of suspense must elapse before we could know whether this was but a passing kindness from the fickle goddess, or the herald ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... sometimes they don't know their own mind—particularly if they are very young; and when they do at last, you clever creatures of men, who have interpreted their ignorance to please yourselves, abuse them for being fickle." She stopped to observe the effect of what she believed a rather clear and significant exposition of Jessie's and George's possible situation. But she was not prepared for the look of blank resignation that seemed to drive the color from ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... for a time to bear The badge which none but fickle lives should wear. How oft the envious tongue creates the dart That cleaves the saintly soul and breaks the heart: How oft the hasty ear full credence gives To words in which no grain of truth survives: Were Juno ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... child was told that the name of Bugbee was thereafter to be appended to those she already bore; and being quite pleased with the notion, she forthwith adopted her new appellative, retaining it for several years, until (such is the fickle nature of women) she took a fancy to change it for another which she liked better still. She was also taught to call her grandparents papa and mamma; and though, while a child, she continued to address Miss Cornelia by the title of "Aunty," this respectful custom, as the relative difference ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Santa Maria del Carmine contains relics dear alike to the romance of democracy and empire. It was from this church that Masaniello harangued the fickle populace in vain; it was here that he was despatched by three bandits in the pay of the Duke of Maddaloni; and here he found an honourable interment during a rapid reflux of popular favour. In this church, too, lies Conradin the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... "The people are always fickle, Jethro, and easily led; and their love and respect for the gods renders it easy for any one who works on that feeling to lash them into fury. All else is as nothing in their eyes in comparison with their religion. It is blind worship, if you will; but ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... of war put La Sabina into my possession, after she had been most gallantly defended: the fickle dame returned her to you, with some of my officers ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... mischief." "Pray, my dear," answered the marechale, "be under no mistake: you might be as much beloved as others are, if you did not monopolize the king's affections; the consequence is, that every woman with even a passable face looks upon you as the usurper of her right, and as the fickle gentlemen who woo these gentle ladies are all ready to transfer their homage to you directly you appear, you must admit that your presence is calculated to produce no inconsiderable degree of confusion." The commencement of a play which formed ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... low and sweet, and the lady's nature was vain and fickle, and the prospect of marrying an English lord was very enticing, and so it came about that at last she yielded, and she told him how she was expecting young Wallace that very night at seven o'clock, and she promised to put a light in the window when ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... liberty in religious beliefs and professions. A melancholy example of the prevailing idea, that it was the duty of the civil authority to inflict penalties upon heresy, is the case of Michael Servetus. A Spaniard by birth, with a remarkable aptitude for natural science and medicine, adventurous and fickle, he had published books in which doctrines received by both the great divisions of the Church, especially the doctrine of the Trinity, were assailed. He escaped out of the hands of the Catholics, and came to Geneva. There ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the book on my thumb and sat there silent and without moving for a long time. I was stunned by the clearness of vision the verse had imparted to me. It was illumination. It was like a bolt of God's lightning in the Pit. They would keep Love, the fickle sprite, the forerunner of young life—young life that is imperative ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... of view of the Church, which is of a more human nature. This is fallible and fickle, but, though perpetually changing, it will last as long as there are weak human beings. The light of cloudless divine revelation is far too pure and radiant for poor, weak man. But the Church interposes as mediator, to soften and moderate, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... French, and is therefore not my immediate business, as they are eminently capable of looking after themselves. I merely drop one word in passing, lest you waste your powerful intellect on such projects. The English may some day forgive you; the French never will. You Teutons are too light and fickle to understand the Latin seriousness. My only concern is to point out that about England, at least, you are invariably ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... all. It is the sort of spectacle that turns a man to serious thinking. Well, but it is a great comfort to reflect that I dealt fairly with every one of them. Several of them treated me most unjustly, too. But that is past and done with: and I bear no malice toward such fickle and short-sighted creatures as could not be contented with one lover, and he the ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... my mistress, fickle she, Yet dear beyond all dearth of speech; Child of the winds of land and sea She charms me with the charm of each— Full soft and sweet she sings and then She sings wild songs ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... enough to keep their Favours secret—But from Romantick Love, Good Heav'n defend me. A Moment's Joy's not worth an Age's Courtship; and when the Nymph's Demure, and Dull and Shy, and Foolish and Freakish, and Fickle, there are Billiards at the Smyrna, Bowles at Marybone, and Dice at the Groom-Porter's—Are ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker
... Fashionable society was well represented in the gallery—where a collection of pictures by a celebrated artist was being shown; and prior to the entrance of the lady in the strangely fashioned tiger-skin cloak, the somewhat extraordinary works of art had engaged the interest even of the most fickle, but, from the moment the tiger-lady made her appearance, even the most ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... she exclaimed, in feigned surprise, "risen, eh? Upon my word, you are a fickle cavalier. Well, I suppose I must extend my clemency to you. At what price will you be willing ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... chance that the courtier of the king's presence shall pick up a purse of gold, and the next that he shall lie shorter by the head. And philosophers have remarked, saying, "It is incumbent on us to be constantly aware of the fickle dispositions of kings, who will one moment take offence at a salutation, and at another make an honorary dress the return for an act of rudeness; and they have said, That to be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise.—Be ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... startling an effect upon the defenders. For a moment they paused, with weapons uplifted, and stared. Where an enemy had been, there was nothing. So doubtful Greeks or Trojans might have paused and stared upon the plains of Ilion when some splenetic and fickle deity burst unannounced and overwhelming into the central clamor of ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... petticoat does remain tender and true, it is hard upon her that her lord should prove false and fickle, given the warm corner our fair 'sisters, cousins, and our aunts,' are content to purr; they shine in society, and have gained what is the very end and aim of ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... Brothers of the Pen, than they have been to a defenceless Woman; for I am not content to write for a Third day only. I value Fame as much as if I had been born a Hero; and if you rob me of that, I can retire from the ungrateful World, and scorn its fickle Favours. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... was the only thing Ed Higgins could find to say. Ed, as fickle as the wind, was once more deeply in love with Rosalie, having switched from Miss Banks immediately after ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... German liberties, and so secured the friendship of the imperial towns and the German princes. The Landgrave of Hesse, the Elector of Treves, and the Duke of Neuburg readily accepted the protection of France. It proved impossible to gain the fickle Duke of Lorraine; it was equally difficult to win over the powerful Elector of Bavaria. Maximilian I of Bavaria had played an important part in the Thirty Years' War, but from June, 1644, he began to enter into periodical negotiations with Mazarin. The cardinal placed no reliance ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... cannot tell. We know so little of the Chincas that we have nothing to go upon. Some savages have patience enough to wait for any time to carry out their revenge or slay an enemy; others are fickle, and though they may be fierce in attack, soon tire of waiting, and are eager to return to their homes again. I cannot think that they will speedily leave. They have assembled, many of them perhaps from considerable distances; they have had two days' march up here, and have ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... in her court-yard. To brush her hair while such a confidant looked on and asked questions, was more than Pallas Athene herself could do, though she looked out forever from the windows of her Acropolis over the Blue AEgean. The sea is capricious, fickle, angry, fawning, violent, savage and wanton; it caresses and raves in a breath, and has its moods of silence, but Esther's huge playmate rambled on with its story, in the same steady voice, never shrill or angry, never silent or degraded by a sign of human failings, and yet so frank and sympathetic ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... studios. He was the man born to be king. The attainment of his kingdom alone mattered. The intermediary phases were of no account. It had been a period of struggle, hardship and, as far as the stage itself was concerned, disillusion. After the first year or so, the goddess Fortune, more fickle in Theatreland, perhaps, than anywhere else, passed him by. London had no use for his services, especially when it learned that he aspired to play parts. It even refused him the privilege of walking ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... daughter of a merchant of Baghdad, whom he had hitherto lived on very amicable terms. When she heard that he was arranging for a second marriage, she came to him in a great rage. "How now," said she, "two hands in one glove! two swords in one scabbard! two wives in one house! Go, fickle man! Since the caresses of a young and faithful wife cannot secure your constancy, I am ready to yield my place to my rival and retire to my own family. Repudiate me— return my dowry—and you shall never see me more." "I am glad you have thus anticipated me," answered ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... give up all hope," said Kretschmer; "the people are timid and fickle, and whoever will give them the sweetest words wins them over to his side. Come, let us try our luck elsewhere. Every thing depends upon our being beforehand with this braggart Gotzkowsky, and getting first the ear of the people. You, ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... other European powers, looked upon them in a friendly manner. Prussia, indeed, solemnly promised assistance; and in the month of March, 1790, Frederic William even concluded a defensive alliance with Poland. But the friendship of courts is variable, and the favour of monarchs fickle. The King of Prussia had attached himself to the cause of Poland, not from any respect for her rights, but from a spirit of jealousy towards Russia, and in the hopes of obtaining something for himself. He was to have Dantzic and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... September is one of even more fickle and changeable a nature than most others; it is, however, one of very great importance to those who are desirous of securing plenty of geranium and other cuttings, for the next summer's work; because, should the month by chance happen to be ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... of our fickle state, Since man on earth, unparalleled! The rarer thy example stands, By how much from the top of wondrous glory, Strongest of mortal men, To lowest pitch of abject fortune ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... I hear thee coupled with one girl, and then again with another, till I do not know what to think, Leon. I am afraid thou art fickle." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... Friendly Call A Dinner at ——* Sound and Fury Tictocq Tracked to Doom A Snapshot at the President An Unfinished Christmas Story The Unprofitable Servant Aristocracy Versus Hash The Prisoner of Zembla A Strange Story Fickle Fortune, or How Gladys Hustled An Apology Lord Oakhurst's Curse Bexar Scrip No. 2692 Queries and Answers Poems The Pewee Nothing to Say The Murderer Some Postscripts Two Portraits A Contribution The Old Farm Vanity The Lullaby Boy Chanson de Boheme Hard to ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... the ethnography of its tribes, and to determine the export of the produce of the interior." He held the streams that fed Tanganyika to be the ultimate sources of the Nile; and believed that the glory of their discovery would be his. Fortune, however, the most fickle of goddesses, thought fit to deprive him of ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... fevered state of the public mind acting upon them from all directions; so consuming are their labours in the study and in public, pressed and urged upon them by the demands of the time; and, withal, so fickle has the popular mind become under a system that is forever demanding some new and still more exciting measure—some new society—some new monthly or weekly meeting, which perhaps soon grows into a religious holiday—some ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... like injudicious things are said even by some who ought to have more discretion. People talk without thinking, or make such statements to cover their own shortcomings and faults. Why shall they not stand? are they in the keeping of a feeble or fickle Saviour? isn't His grace as strong as sin? is not Jesus always mightier than the devil? and have not millions of the greatest sinners who have found the Lord, stood firm against the snares of the world, and all the devices of the wicked one? "He won't stand," is an old lie, which ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell
... against them—and Maluco affairs were not failing to give Joan de Esquivel, the master-of-camp, sufficient to do. He was acting as governor there and had but little security from the natives, who, being a Mahometan people, and by nature easily persuaded and fickle, are restless, and ready for disturbances and wars. Daily and in different parts the natives were being incited and aroused to rebellion; and although the master-of-camp and his captains were endeavoring to punish and pacify them, they could not do what was necessary to quiet so many ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... the celebrated Diary of this versatile politician, he had written a "Brief account of George Bubb Doddington, Lord Melcombe," which the noble editor of the "Memoires" has inserted. It describes him, "as his Diary shows, vain, fickle, ambitious, and corrupt,' and very lethargic; but gives him credit for great wit and readiness." Cumberland, in his Memoirs, thus paints him:-"Dodington, lolling in his chair, in perfect apathy and self-command, dozing, and even snoring, at intervals, in his lethargic way, broke out ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... would be better to rent," said Mr. Fairfield. "Suppose my fickle daughter should change her mind, and after a visit in the city decide that she prefers it for ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... they took the ground. This increase of distance was in every way a gain to the party standing on the defensive, and a corresponding loss to the assailants. Saumarez ordered the cables cut and sail made to close once more; but the light and fickle airs both baffled this effort and further embarrassed the British, through the difficulty of keeping their broadsides in position. Here happened the great disaster of the day. One of the outer ships, the Hannibal, tried to pass inside the headmost of the French, not realizing ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... at his old father's trade, And thought he would stick to his wax and the last, But Fortune, the fickle, incontinent jade, A turn to his fortune has given a cast; "A wife with a fortune," which men hunt in packs, To Jack was the fortune that fell to his share; A fortune that often is such a hard tax, That men hurry through it with "nothing to spare," With "nothing to eat," or a house "fit to live ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... distinction 'Twixt good and evil, truth and falsehood, vanish? What then is resolution? What is firmness? What is the faith of man, if in one weak, Unguarded hour, the rules of threescore years Dissolve in air, like woman's fickle favor? ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... comment. There may be reasons for breaking one engagement, but when it comes to the second, Mrs. Grundy makes remarks, and is inclined to blame the girl, either for too great haste to wed, or for being fickle and capricious, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the dog-star, in valley retired, Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well, Which tells how one passion Penelope fired, And charmed fickle Circe herself by ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... the nation—every fourth head—as available for war. This process for David's case would have yielded perhaps about 1,100,000 fighting men throughout Palestine. But this unwieldy pospolite was far from meeting David's secret anxieties. He had remarked the fickle and insurrectionary state of the people. Even against himself how easy had it been found to organize a sudden rebellion, and to conceal it so prosperously that he and his whole court saved themselves from capture only by a few hours' start of the enemy, and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... now, since here I came, the twentieth year, Since left my land, and all I once held dear: But never from that hour has Helen heard From thee a harsh reproach or painful word; But if thy kindred blam'd me, if unkind The queen e'er glanc'd at Helen's fickle mind— (For Priam, still benevolently mild, Look'd on me as a father views his child)— Thy gentle speech, thy gentleness of soul, Would by thine own, their harsher minds control. Hence, with a heart by torturing misery rent, Thee and my ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... which occupied the prophets of Israel, and building up the rule of one God, a Being supremely wise and good, source of all beauty, and the worker of all that is wrought in the universe, in place of the many fickle and weak deities who formerly bore sway. In many ways the schools of Greece were the forerunners of Christianity. As the Jews, carried far from their temple, form a new principle of religious association and learn to meet for the service of God, without any sacrifice, in ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... did not adopt their standards, and shrank always with innate refinement from everything gross. No one thought of shooting her now. She had not only lived down her unpopularity, but, by dint of her natural fearlessness, her cheerful audacity of speech, and quick comprehension, had won back the fickle hearts of the people, who weighed her words again superstitiously, and made much of her. The workmen, with the indolent, inconsequent Irish temperament which makes it irksome to follow up a task continuously, and easier to do anything than the work in hand, would break off to amuse her at any ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... withdrew his gaze, and turned his attention to, the more immediate object of his excursion. After a few moments spent in regulating his hook and line, he strung his angle-rod, and threw out to see whether he could succeed in tempting, at that unfavorable hour, the fickle trout from their watery recesses. But all in vain the attempt. Not a trout was seen stirring the water at the surface, or manifesting his presence around the hook beneath; and all the endeavors which ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... waters The fickle feet may roam, But they find no light so pure and bright As the one fair star of home; The star of tender hearts, lady, That glows in an ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... of night While yet the day is full of golden light, We felt steal o'er us. Vivian broke the spell Of dream-fraught silence, throwing down his book: "Young ladies, please allow me to arrange These wraps about your shoulders. I know well The fickle nature of our atmosphere,— Her smile swift followed by a frown or tear,— And go prepared for changes. Now you look, Like—like—oh, where's a pretty simile? Had you a pocket mirror here you'd see How well my native talent is displayed In ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... fortunate than rich," says an old proverb, and the correctness of this saying was fully exemplified in the life of Don Rodrigo de Cespedes. Indeed, his whole existence had been a series of mischances and unfortunate results; and he appeared especially reserved as a proper subject on whom the fickle goddess might ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... gave the impression of possessing greater means than she really commanded; this was doubly serious when it came to her taking up with a man who was altogether dependent on his wits, his skill and his invention, and subject to the passing whims of a fickle public taste. She went down to the library, to discuss the ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... the priests of that thought which establishes the foundations of the castle."—"We hear too much of the results of machinery, commerce, and the useful arts. We are a puny and a fickle folk. Avarice, hesitation, and following are our diseases. The rapid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansion of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; this luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... love me, my dear wife, because I have been so pulled down by illness? You are not so fickle—I am come on purpose for you—my mother and father ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... his pail to the sand as if casting all thought of fickle woman from him and ran off down the beach toward the cabin, deigning not to hear Jean as she ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... this high praise from so imposing a source added, the fickle village turned again, and gave Joan countenance, compliment, and peace. Her mother took her back to her heart, and even her father relented and said he was proud of her. But the time hung heavy on her hands, nevertheless, for the siege of Orleans was begun, the clouds lowered ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... It may be so in your English law—but Scotland makes Love himself the priest. A vow betwixt a fond couple, the blue heaven alone witnessing, will protect a confiding girl against the perjury of a fickle swain, as much as if a Dean had performed the rites in the loftiest cathedral in England. Nay, more; if the child of love be acknowledged by the father at the time when he is baptized—if he present the mother to strangers of ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... the caverns of the mine Are warmer than the breast that holds that faithless heart of thine; Thou art fickle as the sea, thou art wandering as the wind, And the restless ever-mounting flame is not more hard to bind. If the tears I shed were tongues, yet all too few would be To tell of all the treachery that thou hast shown to me. Oh! I could chide thee sharply—but ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... law of logic that it was because they themselves had disillusioned you, and that you had no control over the coming or going of your emotion—but at the end of your peroration they would still reproach you for being a fickle brute, and believe themselves blameless, and ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... go to boarding-school next year, I don't care whether you take the rooms in Twenty-third Street or not," said Fanny sullenly, for, in spite of her fickle temperament, there was a remarkable ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... courtier to the carter) is such that no form of apparel liketh us longer than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long, and be not laid aside to receive some other trinket newly devised by the fickle-headed tailors, who covet to have several tricks in cutting, thereby to draw fond customers to more expense of money. For my part, I can tell better how to inveigh against this enormity than describe any certainty of our attire; sithence such is our ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... extreme. Fortitude is the mean, and that is limited within bonds, and prescribed with circumstance. But above all," and with that he fetched a deep sigh, "beware of love, for it is far more perilous than pleasant, and yet, I tell you, it allureth as ill as the Sirens. O my sons, fancy is a fickle thing, and beauty's paintings are tricked up with time's colors, which, being set to dry in the sun, perish with the same. Venus is a wanton, and though her laws pretend liberty, yet there is nothing but loss and glistering misery. Cupid's wings are plumed with ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... spend our time grieving over some lost love that reason and good judgment tells us would have come to naught under any circumstances. I hope Mrs. Morton is happy and satisfied. Perhaps you'll think me fickle, senyorita, but let me confess to you the fact that I'm not feeling as much like grieving as I ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... from the dismayed vision, leaving us a considerably lower set than we were at first, and glad of our lowness. This is the second lady's own ground, however, and now she comes out—in a way that banishes far from our fickle minds all thoughts of the first lady and her mistaken child—with a medley of singing and dancing, a bit of breakdown, of cancan, of jig, a bit of "Le Sabre de mon Pere," and of all memorable slang songs, given with the most grotesque and clownish spirit that ever ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... to remind ourselves of the terrible evil it would have been to the world if Carthage had overcome Rome. For Carthage was possessed of almost every bad quality which could work ill to the human race. Greed for money was her passion, and in order to obtain wealth she proved herself fickle, short-sighted, lawless, and boundlessly cruel. The government of Rome, which the Eternal City handed on to the countries she conquered, was founded not only on law, but on common-sense. Considering the customs of the world during the thousand years of her greatest glory, she was seldom cruel, and ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... fifty-six years later the second Emperor said so sadly when he was a prisoner in Germany: "In France one must never be unfortunate." What was then left for her to do in that volcano, that land which swallows all greatness and glory, amid that fickle people who change their opinions and passions as an actress changes her dress? Where Napoleon, with all his genius, had made a complete failure, could a young, ignorant woman be reasonably expected to succeed in the face ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... sir?" touching an imaginary cap. "Shall I say that 'Dark and true and tender is the North,' and 'Fierce and false and fickle is the South,' ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... could not, he told us with lively pantomime, endure the torture to an end. Our enamoured countryman was more resolved; he was tattooed from head to foot in the most approved methods of the art: and at last presented himself before his mistress a new man. The fickle fair one could never behold him from that day except with laughter. For my part, I could never see the man without a kind of admiration; of him it might be said, if ever of any, that he had loved not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thee, That this sorrow may escape thee, And this darkened cloud pass over. Hie thee straightway to the Northland, Visit thou the Suomi daughters; Thou wilt find them wise and lovely, Far more beautiful than Aino, Far more worthy of a husband, Not such silly chatter-boxes, As the fickle Lapland maidens. Take for thee a life-companion, From the honest homes of Suomi, One of Northland's honest daughters; She will charm thee with her sweetness, Make thee happy through her goodness, Form perfection, manners easy, Every step and movement graceful, Full of wit and good behavior, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... She said she never expected to marry; that she wanted to give her life to makin' folks happy and doin' for them, folks that had a sorrow—but the Lord hadn't given her any sorrowful folks to do for. It's my opinion that she thought consid'able of that fickle Willy Parks. Then I reasoned with her some, and she come to see that maybe this was the app'inted work for her to do—considerin' you'd set your heart on it so. She said she didn't know but I needed lookin' ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... Prince (Government, for as ever they are identical) aims only at authority. Now authority must spring from love or fear. It were best to combine both motives to obedience but you cannot. The Prince must remember that men are fickle, and love at their own pleasure, and that men are fearful and fear at the pleasure of the Prince. Let him therefore depend on what is of himself, not on that which is of others. 'Yet if he win not love he may escape hate, and so it ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... your silence, which, without reason, concealed the understanding between your hearts. If I had known this secret sooner, it might perhaps have spared us both some sad trouble; I might then coldly and justly have refused to listen to the sighs of a fickle lover, and perhaps have sent ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... on! Don't deceive yourself. The people are a mob yet. They are fickle as the flames o' hell. They don't know what they do want, but in the end the man that leads them and stands by them is sure ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... fickle one!' said he. 'One indeed came who set thee free, and he is now near thee again; but how have you used him? Ought he to have had such treatment from thee?' Then he went out and sent away the company, and said the wedding was at an end, ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... any other passion, fired his ambition; but it was not the love of notoriety—the fame he courted was not that which should only render his name conspicuous among men, that he might receive the incense of hypocritical flattery, or be pointed at by the fickle multitude—for such, his contempt was supreme; but it was the desire of his heart, and the struggle of his life, to be embalmed in men's memories as the benefactor of his race, to be remembered for his deeds ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... there in it? Does it make a man's legs crooked? does it spoil his shape? The plague take him who first invented being grieved about such a delusion, linking the honour of the wisest man to anything a fickle woman may do. Since every person is rightly held responsible for his own crimes, how can our honour, in this case, be considered criminal? We are blamed for the actions of other people. If our wives have an intrigue with any man, ...
— Sganarelle - or The Self-Deceived Husband • Moliere
... tried to crawl along to a tree where it could twine itself around and climb, but it was too small, and then the rain came and made it cold and wet, and even the fickle wind did not ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... my share of a fickle heart, Mine of a paltry love: Take it or leave it as you will, I ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... o'er our frozen minds they pass, Like shadows from the mirror'd glass. Wayward, fickle is our mood, Hovering betwixt bad and good, Happier than brief-dated man, Living twenty times his span; Far less happy, for we have Help nor hope beyond the grave! Man awakes to joy or sorrow; Ours the sleep that knows no morrow. This is all that I can show— This is ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... condemned. Public fasts and prayers were decreed throughout the colony. Judges and juries emulated one another in admitting a misgiving 'that we were sadly deluded and mistaken.' Dr. Mather was less fickle and less repentant. In one of his treatises on the subject, recounting some of the signs and proofs of the actual crime, he declares: 'Nor are these the tenth part of the prodigies that fell out among the inhabitants of New England. Fleshy people may burlesque these things: but when hundreds ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... fickle and the reservation was far. So, when the rain was over next morning, she ran to the barn, bridled her horse, climbed from the manger to his back, and, lying flat to escape the top casing of the door, went out of the stable ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... unrestrained joviality of disposition, which rendered them impatient under the severe discipline of the fanatical preachers; while they were not less naturally discontented with the military despotism of Cromwell's Major-Generals. Secondly, the people were fickle as usual, and the return of the King had novelty in it, and was therefore popular. The side of the Puritans was also deserted at this period by a numerous class of more thinking and prudential persons, who never forsook them till they became unfortunate. These sagacious personages were called in ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... them were the forces of Nature, and they were wholly dependent upon her fickle favor. It might be a day, a week, a month before she would let them through, and, even when the barrier began to yield, another ship, a league distant, might profit by an opening which to them was barred. For a long, dull period the voyagers lay as helpless as if in dry-dock, while wandering ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... her vulgarity and repulsiveness have been circulated; but in making up our estimate of her, the fact that she held Goethe in loyal bonds for eight and twenty years must not be passed over lightly. Fickle as he was in youth, and admiring as he did brilliant women in his manhood, Christine Vulpius must have had charms, and not of a light order, to have held him thus her willing slave. No mere fat and vulgar Frau without mind or sensibility could have done ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... a mover in the intrigues of kings? Lucien at first was fain to be content with the banal answer—the Spanish are a generous race. The Spaniard is generous! even so the Italian is jealous and a poisoner, the Frenchman fickle, the German frank, the Jew ignoble, and the Englishman noble. Reverse these verdicts and you shall arrive within a reasonable distance of the truth! The Jews have monopolized the gold of the world; they compose Robert the Devil, act Phedre, sing William Tell, give commissions for pictures ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... when he had paced thus, confessing, explaining—what you will—but, in the last instance, living—living before me, under his own little cloud, with all his unconscious subtlety which could draw consolation from the very source of sorrow. It was the same mood, the same and different, like a fickle companion that to-day guiding you on the true path, with the same eyes, the same step, the same impulse, to-morrow will lead you hopelessly astray. His tread was assured, his straying, darkened eyes seemed to search the room for something. One of his footfalls somehow sounded louder than the other—the ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... acquitted,—his my love alway! Who has my hand, he holds—shall hold—my heart! Truth is my guide,—let sophistry depart! Had Fate been kind, then had Pauline been thine, Heart, faith and duty, linked with bliss divine. In vain had fickle Fortune barred the way, Want had been wealth with thee, my guide, my stay, And poverty had fallen from the wings Of soaring love, who mocks the wealth of kings! Not mine to choose, for he—my father's choice— Must ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... open to grief, To comfort the fair one I turned; "Of fickle ones thou art the chief!" Frowned the Violet, and ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... tournament participated in by Douglas, Calhoun, Lamborn, and Thomas on the part of the Democrats, and Logan, Baker, Browning, and Lincoln on the part of the Whigs. The discussion began with great enthusiasm and with crowded houses, but by the time it came to Lincoln's duty to close the debate the fickle public had tired of the intellectual jousts, and he spoke to a comparatively thin house. But his speech was considered the best of the series, and there was such a demand for it that he wrote it out, and it was printed and circulated in the ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... upon the hated Germans marching through their beloved city. No! when the day arrived they would hide themselves in their houses, or shut their eyes to such a hateful sight. But by the 1st of March a change had come over the fickle Parisians, for at an early hour the sidewalks were jammed with people, and the windows and doors of the houses filled with men, women, and children eager to get a look at the conquerors. Only a few came in the morning, however—an advance-guard of perhaps a thousand cavalry and ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... something hot, and she had soon found that the young cook could be trusted to finish the work down-stairs. It was her opinion that it is as well to be comfortable when you can, as blessings are fleeting and fickle, especially when they are cooks; so she indulged often both in bed and the glass, notably the glass. She had not been able to go to bed quite as early as she liked that day, for her master had a visitor, and there had ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... into her grandfather's keeping! A cold horror falls upon her. After all these weary years of hated servitude to be undone! It is impossible even fickle fortune should play her such ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... of the thick thronged pikes, Must now depart most lamentably slain By Humber's treacheries and fortune's spites. Cursed be her charms, damned be her cursed charms That doth delude the wayward hearts of men, Of men that trust unto her fickle wheel, Which never leaveth turning upside down. O gods, O heavens, allot me but the place Where I may find her hateful mansion! I'll pass the Alps to watery Meroe, Where fiery Phoebus in his chariot, The wheels whereof are decked with Emeralds, Casts ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... coats, richly emblazoned, rousing forth many a shout and hurrah, as one and another symbol was recognised to be the badge of some favourite chief; but more than all, was the young Stanley's escutcheon favoured by the fickle breath of popular opinion, which made it needful that a double guard should be mounted near his dwelling,—a precaution, moreover, rendered needful by the many tumults among the different partisans and retainers, not always ending without bloodshed. The arrival of the king, however, soon changed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... ten times rather have heard what they said than to listen to the cheers of the multitude; for he knew that love and friendship endure, while the admiration of the crowd is as fickle as the weather, praising one day and on ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... an idea of faithlessness in it, nevertheless," said Maria Consuelo, thoughtfully. "Or if it is not faithless, it is fickle. It is not the same to oneself to love ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... letters be seized; he therefore directs his agent to take certain measures in his behalf, "for one cannot trust in friars." He recounts the proceedings in the residencia of Vargas, in which there are many false witnesses. He thinks that the Spaniards of Manila are more fickle than any others, and regards that colony as "a little edition of hell." He is eager to get away from the islands, and urges his friend to secure for him permission to do so, and to make arrangements so that he may not be needlessly detained in the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... It was nine o'clock on the next day, 22nd October, and we were on deck waiting for the arrival of the steamer from Norddeich. There was no change in the weather—still the same stringent cold, with a high barometer, and only fickle flaws of air; but the morning was gloriously clear, except for a wreath or two of mist curling like smoke from the sea, and an attenuated belt of opaque fog on the northern horizon. The harbour lay open before us, and very commodious and civilized it looked, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... was quickly followed by disgrace, and the end of his career was near at hand. He was of the true soldierly temperament, stirring, ambitious, not content to rest and rust, and as a result his credit with the fickle Athenians quickly disappeared. His head seems to have been turned by his success, and he soon after asked for a fleet of seventy ships of war, to be placed under his command. He did not say where he proposed to go, but stated only that whoever should come with ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Son of Man rode into Jerusalem. A vast multitude of people thronged the streets and cast their garments and palm branches before Him, and with unbounded enthusiasm cried "Hosanna in the highest!" But only a few days later that same multitude, as cruel as they were fickle, followed the Son of Man with the fiendish cry "Crucify him! crucify him!" ceasing not until he hung on the cross, and then they taunted him with ...
— American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 3, March, 1896 • Various
... he interrupted. "That's only a tag. The people whose business it is to decide these things—DIE HERREN DICHTER—are not agreed to this day whet it's man who's fickle or woman. In this mood it's one, in that, the other; and the silly world bleats ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... No fickle Sun-God holds the flocks That graze its shores in keeping; No icy kiss of Dian mocks The youth beside it sleeping: Our Christian river loveth most The beautiful and human; The heathen streams of Naiads boast, But ours of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... last bolt. "I believe I'm fickle, Janet. There'll be a sair heart for the lass that marries me. I wouldna wonder if I ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... from the fickle and the frail With gather'd power, yet the same Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... I know, the odds were in our favour and success seemed assured. Our opponents then presented their case, and still we felt no doubt; but Fortune is a fickle jade and at the last she left us in the lurch. On the eighth day of the proceedings the Chairman announced: "The Committee are of opinion that it is not expedient to proceed with the Bill." This was the coup de grace. No reasons are ever given by a ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... will find, I had before I'd him to some been kind, Then how he'd call me arrant Bitch and Whore, And Swear some Stallion had been there before; Then leave me, Wherefore I will single Live, And my Invention to decoying give, For as I was by fickle Man betray'd, So Men by me too shall be Bubbles made, Till the dull Sots clandestine Means do take, In robbing Masters,for a Strumpets sake, For which if they shou'd at the Gallows Swing, Their End I'd ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses From Women • Various
... their boards you trod, Received you almost as a demi-god; Rushed to the teeming rows in frantic swarms, And rained applauses not in showers but storms. But should you now their fickle welcome ask, Faint shouts would greet the veteran of the mask; And ah! what anguish would it be to search For your old play-house in a bastard church! To find the dome wherein your hour you strutted, Altered and maimed ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... she told Lois, "because blue is true. I tie all Jack's letters in blue. Yellow means fickle—" She paused. "Well, there is a boy," she proceeded reluctantly, "down home, who used to like me until he met a cousin of mine, and she just naturally cut me out; so I tie his letters with yellow ribbon. This here green," she took up two letters ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... hand upon the door-post, and with the other he sought to brush this monstrous illusion from his fickle eyes. But Mauburn and the details of his deadly British breakfast became only more distinct. The appalled observer groaned and rushed for the sideboard, whence a decanter, a bowl of cracked ice, ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... feel at home, when he cares to, in the mimic universe of Lichfield and Fairhaven, where gay ribbons perpetually flutter, and where eyes and hands perpetually invite, and where love runs a deft, dainty, fickle course in all weathers. ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... not, being well garrisoned, they would be able to defend for a time, and that, in the interim, some event would occur for their relief, as had been the case during the former wars which the Florentines had carried on against them. Their only apprehension arose from the fickle minds of the plebeians, who, becoming weary of the siege, would have more consideration of their own danger than of other's liberty, and would thus compel them to submit to some disgraceful and ruinous capitulation. In ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... was in the habit of making his decisions rapidly. This habit sometimes led him into embarrassing mistakes, and once in a great while resulted in humiliating reversals of opinion, so that people who did not know him thought he was fickle and changeable. In the present case, Philip acted with his customary quickness, and knew very well that his ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... Flanders, Lord of Friesland, and the like, while the whole power of government was lodged with the states. They whispered that it was time to take measures for the incorporation of the Netherlands into France, and they persuaded the false and fickle Anjou that there would never be any hope of his royal brother's assistance, except upon the understanding that the blood and treasure of Frenchmen were to be spent to increase the power, not of upstart and independent provinces, but of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... hardly attribute this statement seriously to one who knew as well as did Green how fickle are the winds, and how utterly different are the conditions between the still air of a room and those of the open sky. His insight into the difficulties of the problem cannot have been less than that of his successor, ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... Anne was at home all the old glee and enjoyment of life returned. There was, moreover, the curate, "bonnie, pleasant, light-hearted, good-tempered, generous, careless, crafty, fickle, and unclerical," to add piquancy to the situation. "He sits opposite to Anne at church, sighing softly, and looking out of the corners of his eyes—and she is so quiet, her look so downcast; they are a picture," says merry Charlotte. This first curate at Haworth was exempted ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... ordered to retire, he said: "I am reluctant to say anything of my countrymen that may seem disparaging. I do not, however, come to accuse them of any crime actually committed by them, but to see to it that they do not commit one. The minds of our people are far more fickle than I could wish. We have learned that by many disasters; seeing that we are still preserved, not through our own merits, but thanks to your forbearance. There is now here a great multitude of Volscians; the games are going on: the city will be ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... aside the edge of popular fury, Isabella proceeded with her retinue to the royal residence in the city, attended by the fickle multitude, whom she again addressed on arriving there, admonishing them to return to their vocations, as this was no time for calm inquiry; and promising, that, if they would send three or four of their number to her on the morrow to report the extent of their grievances, she ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... never broke with me. She shed tears in abundance, and wounded my heart a thousand times by the sight of her grief and her distress. For her sake I was often fain to bid farewell to her fickle lover, proud monarch though he was. But by breaking with him I should not have reestablished La Valliere. The prince's violent passion had changed to mere friendship, blended with esteem. To try and resuscitate attachments of this ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre |
