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Wont   Listen
verb
Wont  v. i.  (past wont; past part. wont or wonted; pres. part. wonting)  To be accustomed or habituated; to be used. "A yearly solemn feast she wont to make."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wont" Quotes from Famous Books



... you come here and tel him weve got a bully doctor Thee if Billy Sims is ded or got wel you mite ketch somthin ells and its prime heer farthers got a gun and I no where the pouder is bring some pecushin caps with you Thee or well hav to tuch her off with a cole if old Beeswax wont let you come you mite send me some caps in a leter don't mash em Thee doctur sais I wil be wel in about a munth if I don't ketch cold but I can easy fall in the pond before the munth is out Thee its ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II. No. 38, Saturday, December 17, 1870. • Various

... rested, interested, and amused Korak. The life of the huge beasts took his mind, temporarily from his own grief. He came to love them as he loved not even the great apes, and there was one gigantic tusker in particular of which he was very fond—the lord of the herd—a savage beast that was wont to charge a stranger upon the slightest provocation, or upon no provocation whatsoever. And to Korak this mountain of destruction was docile and affectionate as ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Betsy Figgles was not a very poetical subject, by name or size. She was a fine, bouncing young woman of four-and-twenty; she was dutiful and bountiful, if not beautiful. She was useful, and even ornamental in her old father's eyes, and, as he was wont to say, in his never-to-be-forgotten ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... when Minister, struggled honestly, perhaps, but, as was his wont, obstinately, proudly, and offensively, against the growing power of the Commons. He was for allowing them their old authority, and not one atom more. He would never have claimed for the Crown a right to levy taxes from the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... admitted, one was specially noteworthy. She was about twenty-five, and the Elders objected because her marriage had not been according to the Christian usage on Aniwa. She left us weeping deeply. I was writing late at night in the cool evening air, as was my wont in that oppressive tropical clime, and a knock was heard at my door. I called out, "Akai era?" ( Who ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton

... assumed—the once brilliant Chevalier d'Orrain. Pierrebon alone knew my secret, and he was as silent as the grave. At times the honest fellow would speak hopefully of a good day to come; but I poured cold water on that, and, pointing to my lute and my copy of "Plutarch's Lives," was wont to say that there was enough happiness there for my life without seeking to reopen the past or delve ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... a great day in London, within and without Temple Bar; and for me, if for no other reason, it was famous, because on that day, for the first and last time, I saw the great Queen Elizabeth. About eight o'clock, while I stood, as was my wont, setting types in my master's shop, I looked from the window (as was also my wont), and spied two falconers in their green coats, with a trumpeter riding in the midst, ambling citywards. In a moment I dropped my stick (and ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... a glad reunion. Even Lady Maude was touched, as she met them in the courtyard, and with much more kindliness than she had been wont to treat Doll for some time, she kissed the upraised face; Manners received a stately bow. He, at all events, had much to be forgiven yet; but the baron, casting the last particle of pride to the winds, ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... was wont to be swept by sudden tides, and notably between the dances, when the revellers ebbed through the great doorway to where corks popped and glasses tinkled. Colonel Trethaway and Corliss followed out on the next ebb to the bar, where fifty men and women were lined up. They found ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... a matter on which the Misses and Masters Merrifield were not wont to be particular; and with one of the teasing laughs that Bessie hated, Sam exclaimed as Susan turned to him, "Yes, thank you, Sukey, I don't mind finger sauce," but not before John was stretching out a hand glazed with sugar, and calling out, "Oh, give it to me!" and as it disappeared in his ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge

... been hearing." He had a just mind and was slow to suspect. Even now he could not assimilate the poison of Mr Philp's story. Everybody knew Mr Philp and his propensities. As Mr Toy the barber was wont to say, "Philp don't mean any harm: he just makes mischief like a bee ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... fairies, Good housewives now may say; For now fowle sluts in dairies Do fare as well as they; And though they sweepe their hearths no lease Than maids were wont to doo, Yet who of late for cleanlinesse Finds sixpence ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... like stars, in glory scarcely approachable by mortal virtue or intelligence. John Calvin and John Milton were in an extraordinary degree the authors of modern institutions of liberty, and it would be difficult to decide which has most merit of this praise. The late Albert Gallatin was wont to say that when we celebrated our condition on the fourth of July, we should first drink to the memory of John Calvin, and then to the immediate authors of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Gallatin ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... Indians, on their return at night to the "place of peace" or Gau-strau-yea, they were pursued by a number of the Masassaukas; when both parties had arrived and had their repast, they all lodged there to rest in peace for the night, as they were wont to do. But in the slumber and stillness of the midnight hour, was tested the treachery of the Queen, by the Masassaukas, in asking her consent to massacre the Senecas in their unsuspecting slumber; ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson

... playing. The stock has six or seven ventiges on the upper side, and one back ventige, like the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the Braes of Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds wont ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... been sore places in the domestic history of her family. The career of a fashionable belle is not to be supported without something of an outlay; and that innocence of arithmetical combinations, over which she was wont to laugh bewitchingly among her adorers, sometimes led to results quite astounding to the prosaic, hard-working papa, who stood financially ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... Neil had transgressed all the laws of hospitality. The Semples had a similar charge to make. And it provoked Madam Semple that Mrs. Gordon continued her friendship with Katherine. Every one else blamed Katherine altogether in the matter; Mrs. Gordon had defied the use and wont of society on such occasions, and thrown the whole blame on Neil. Somehow, in her secret heart, she even blamed Lysbet a little. "Ever since I told her there was an earldom in the family, she's been daft to push her daughter into it," was her frequent remark to the elder; ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... wished to go to Jerusalem. At which Joseph was astonished that his father should have asked him such a thing.... Yet why not? For awhile back he was discussing such very points with some young gossips. His tongue wagged as was its wont on all occasions, though his mind was away and he suddenly stopped speaking; and when the stirring of his father's feet on the floor awakened him, he saw his father sitting pen in hand watching him and no doubt asking himself of ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... this, excepting, of course, the setting and reefing and taking in sail on board a moving vessel, instead of practising all these merely in dumb-show as had been our wont in a stationary ship like the Saint Vincent, was the exercise we had with the old-fashioned little muzzle-loading truck guns, which were mounted on wooden carriages of the sort only seen in the old Victory nowadays, with ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson

... with that expression of clear amusement which is not always an indication of high esteem, but which even pretty chatterers, who are not the reverse of estimable, often prefer to masculine inattention; and while he listened Bernard, according to his wont, made his reflections. He said to himself that there were two kinds of pretty girls—the acutely conscious and the finely unconscious. Mrs. Vivian's protege was a member of the former category; she belonged to the genus coquette. We ...
— Confidence • Henry James

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

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

... others, and to talk as if Christian painting had expired with Perugino. We were much struck with our authoress's power of finding spiritual truth and beauty in Titian's "Assumption," one of the very pictures in which the "high-art" party are wont to see nothing but "coarseness" and "earthliness" of conception. She, having, we suppose, a more acute as well as a more healthy eye for the beautiful and the spiritual, and therefore able to perceive its slightest traces wherever they exist, sees in those "earthly" ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... will never write a poem that is so great as herself. All her accomplishments seem to me but a set of warbles or trills to the true song of her great womanhood. 'Where she is,'" he quoted prettily, "'man will be more than his wont, because of ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane

... it was seen how much the old man seemed to cling to Innocent, and to rely upon her ever tender care of him, the question arose as to whether there might not be an heiress after all, instead of an heir. And the rustic wiseacres gossiped, as is their wont, watching with no small degree of interest the turn of events which had lately taken place in the frank and open admiration and affection displayed by Robin for his illegitimate cousin, as it was thought she was, and as Farmer Jocelyn had tacitly ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli

... trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. Live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck's wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck trousers. The naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and taking high views of one's duties in a conquered country, looked at me reproachfully, as who should say, "Shall these things be?" In a moment or two ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... Within an ace of being Count was he, And would have been but for the spite and gall Of this vile age, mean and illiberal, That cannot even let a donkey be. For mounted on an ass (excuse the word), By Rocinante's side this gentle squire Was wont his wandering master to attend. Delusive hopes that lure the common herd With promises of ease, the heart's desire, In shadows, dreams, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... being the marvelously constructed instrument we are wont to believe it, we now find it to be nothing but a common machine, imperfectly made, and subject to innumerable ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis

... he was wont to sit, A cloud doth keep the golden sun from it, And for his seat, (as teaching us) hath made A mourning covering with a scowling shade. The dew in every flower, this morn, hath lain, Longer than it was wont, this ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various

... imagine a few improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... Tories, who if they meant anything at all by it meant that a Tory war would be a good occasion for damping down democracy; we have changed all that, and now it is quite another kind of politician that is wont to urge us on to "patriotism" as 'tis called. The leaders of the Progressive Liberals, as they would call themselves, long-headed persons who know well enough that social movements are going on, who are not blind to the fact that the world will move with their help or without it; ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris

... to the Spirits of the Bards, whose Remains are buried, or whose Monuments are erected within this Pile. To night an Assembly of the greatest Importance is held upon the Admission of the Great Milton into this Society.' The Poets accordingly appear either in the habits which they were wont to wear on earth, or in some suitable attire. We have Chaucer, Drayton, Beaumont, Ben Jonson, and others who are well particularized, but when we get to the laureates and critics of a later period there are some really valuable touches. In 1738 there must have been many alive who ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... begins his merry career, oh, how his heart grows gay; No summer's drought alarms his fear, nor winter's cold decay; No foresight mars the miller's joy, who's wont to sing and say, "Let others toil from year to year, I ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... may interpret thus: 'The most glorious gifts of the gods are in no wise to be despised; but the things which they are wont to give are withheld from many that would gladly possess them.' Such would have been my reply. I should have added that philosophers are not forbidden to possess a handsome face. Pythagoras, the first to take the name of 'philosopher', was the handsomest man of ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... to spare for his being libelled and lampooned even beyond the usual extravagant wont. Slanders concerning him and his son Cesare were readily circulated, and they will generally be found to spring from those States which had most cause for jealousy and resentment of the Borgia might—Venice, Florence, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... and the factor was the devil of them. Those who had known him longest said he must be fey, that is doomed, so strangely altered was his behaviour. Others said he took more counsel with his bottle than had been his wont, and got no good from it. Almost all the fishers found him surly, and upon some he broke out in violent rage, while to certain whom he regarded as Malcolm's special friends, he carried himself with ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... and he did not press for an answer. Instead, very softly he whistled the air of a song that he had been wont to sing to her half in jest ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... I am naturally a little excited at the idea of American Hallams—Americans in Hallam-Croft! I only hope the shades of Hengist and Horsa wont haunt the old rooms out of simple curiosity. When are they to ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... Allius, answer, a little Verse to requite thy much friendship, a contrary boon. 170 (150) So your household names no rust nor seamy defacing Soil this day, that new morrow, the next to the last. Gifts full many to these heaven send as largely requiting, Gifts Themis ever wont deal to the pious of yore. Joys come plenty to thee, to thy own fair lady together, 175 (155) Come to that house of mirth, come to the lady within; Joy to the forward friend, our love's first fashioner, Anser, Author of all this fair history, founder of all. Lastly beyond them, above ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus

... interest from one who had seen so many phases of life. Dry and spare, as lean as a jockey and as tough as whipcord, he might be seen any day swinging his silver-headed Malacca cane, and pacing along the suburban roads with the same measured gait with which he had been wont to tread the poop of his flagship. He wore a good service stripe upon his cheek, for on one side it was pitted and scarred where a spurt of gravel knocked up by a round-shot had struck him thirty years before, when he served in the Lancaster gun-battery. Yet he was hale and sound, and though he was ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the Fiord was quiet, But within it storm and riot, Such as on his Viking cruises Raud the Strong was wont to ride. ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... grandfather for a half hundred of flour, and refused. A very respectable old lady, whom numbers of you knew, but who some time since went away to her rest—whose offspring, some at least, are luxuriating in comfort above the middle walks of life—was wont in those days to wander away early in the spring to the woods and gather and eat the buds of the basswood, and then bring an apron or basketfull home to the children. Glad were they to pluck the rye and barley heads, ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... took up her Italian, and read Dante with her father, who was a good deal more painstaking in his explanations of obscure idioms and irregular verbs for the benefit of Mrs. Granger with a jointure of three thousand per annum, than he had been wont to show himself for the behoof of Miss Lovel without a sixpence. She drew a great deal; but somehow these favourite pursuits had lost something of their charm. They could not fill her life; it seemed blank and empty ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... day Miss Martha Lacey locked the door of her cottage behind her and set off for the business district of the town. Her hair was carefully arranged and her bonnet was becoming. Her neighbors were wont to say with admiration that Martha Lacey, though she did live alone and was poor in kith, kin, and worldly fortune, never lost her ambition. She kept an eye to the styles as carefully as the ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... yourself. Kettles, plates, saucepans, cups, coffee, sugar, salt, candles, all came from that mysterious basket which rode on the pack-horse with the baggage. Were I visiting Greece again, I would eschew all these vanities—carry nothing but a Reisesack, or travel-bag, as the Germans are wont to call every variety of knapsack—a shawl, and a copy of Pausanias, and live among the Greeks as the Greeks do; but I ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... back as he opened the door, retiring more hastily than was his wont into the space between the barriers out of the bull's way. It was as if he, too, expected the new-comer to be something beyond the ordinary in ferocity or cunning; for Carmona's bulls, like those of the ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... members tremble at the ferocity of the monster who was wont to kiss his hand, but ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... the quarrel between Nikias and Alkibiades had now reached such a pitch, it was decided that the remedy of ostracism must be applied to them. By this from time to time the people of Athens were wont to banish for ten years any citizen whose renown or wealth rendered him dangerous to the state. Great excitement was caused by this measure, as one or the other must be utterly ruined by its application. The Athenians ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... of our friend Adele had not been constant. Three years back, the open, frank, brave front which Phil Elderkin wore had almost reached it; and when Rose had said,—as she was wont to say, in her sisterly pride,—"He's a noble fellow," there had been a little tingling of the heart in Adele, which seemed to echo the words. Afterward had come that little glimpse of the world which her journey ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... England in the time of the Normans. They are brave in battle, and always conquer their enemies. At home they brook no manner of servitude. They are very fond of noises that fill the ears, such as explosions of guns, trumpets, and bells. In London, persons who have got drunk are wont to mount a church tower, for the sake of exercise, and to ring the bells for several hours. If they see a foreigner who is handsome and strong, they are sorry that he is not an ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... hall, and saw her still as he sat apart while the serving men cleared the lower tables and brought in the sleeping gear for the night. He lay down with the rest, and through the high, lancet windows the moonlight kissed his white and weary face as it was wont to do on bright nights in the cloister dormitory. Around him men lay sleeping soundly after the day's toils; there was none to heed, and he sobbed like a little homesick child, until his tired youth triumphed, and he fell asleep, to dream of Martin and the ...
— The Gathering of Brother Hilarius • Michael Fairless

... of Otho the Emperor. It came to pass as it pleased God, that when he was riding to the chase in the country of Bonsollazzo, he lost sight of all his followers in a wood, and came out, as he supposed, at a workshop where iron was wont to be wrought. Here he found men black and deformed, who in place of iron seemed to be tormenting men with fire and with hammer, and he asked them what this might be: and they answered and said that these were damned ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... Star-chamber, worth about sixteen hundred pounds per annum. Of this office however, which might amply have satisfied the wants of a student, it was unfortunately near twenty years before Bacon obtained possession; and during this tedious time of expectation, he was wont to say, "that it was like another man's ground abutting upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barn." He made however a grateful return to the lord treasurer for this instance of patronage, by composing ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... authors were the clients and dependents of the great, they could not have been the objects of a general interest or honor. They had then passed the stage when the simple poet or story-teller was wont to ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... felonious mission on which he apparently was sending me. I believe, too, that the consciousness of the incongruity of my attire increased my sense of helplessness, and that, had I been dressed as Englishmen are wont to be, who take their walks abroad, he would not have found in me, on that occasion, the facile instrument ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... time, a certain hot-tempered gentleman came to visit the Skratdjs. A tall, sandy, energetic young man, who carried his own bag from the railway. The bag had been crammed rather than packed, after the wont of bachelors; and you could see where the heel of a boot distended the leather, and where the bottle ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... shall add to those already given. Oftener than once Filippo Visconti, duke of Milan, relying on their divisions, set wars on foot against the Florentines, and always without success; so that, in lamenting over these failures, he was wont to complain that the mad humours of the Florentines had cost him two millions of gold, without his having anything to show for it. The Veientines and Etruscans, therefore, as I have said already, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... a very pretty old lady, and was very well aware of the fact, having been told so during seventy years. "The Lord made me pleasant to look at," she was wont to say, "and it is a great privilege, my dear; but it is also a responsibility." She had lovely, rippling silver hair, and soft blue eyes, and a complexion like a girl's. She had put on to-day, for the first time, her summer costume,—a skirt and jacket of striped white dimity, open ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards

... number of the Scots nobility, where, after Mr. James Melvil's examination[43], Mr. Andrew being called, told them plainly, "That they knew not what they were doing; they had degenerated from the ancient nobility of Scotland, who were wont to hazard their lives and lands for the freedom of their country, and the gospel which they were betraying and overturning:" But night drawing on, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... 14th of February, on which young people of both sexes were wont (the custom seems gradually dying out) to send love-missives to one another; it is uncertain who the Valentine was that is associated with the day, or whether it was with any of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... dressed so plainly and simply. On her left hand sat Stephen Richford, a dull, heavy-looking man with a thick lip and a suggestion of shiftiness in his small eyes. Altogether he bore a strong resemblance to a prize-fighter. He was quiet and a little moody, as was his wont, so that most of Beatrice's conversation was directed to her neighbour on the other side, Colonel Berrington, a brilliant soldier ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White

... felt that her hour had come—her father and husband thought it far off—she redoubled the energy of her travels, seeking, preferably, rough and ribbed roads which other women in her condition were wont to shun. ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... days are ever wont to come on us suddenly; they are heralded by no storm signals and no falling barometer. We may be like soldiers sitting securely round their camp fire, till all at once bullets begin to fall among ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... force. What was that force? The reason for this unbelievable manifestation of energy was certainly somewhere in the solution, the electrolytic cell, or the steam-bath. Concentrating all the power of his highly-trained analytical mind upon the problem—deaf and blind to everything else, as was his wont when deeply interested—he sat motionless, with his forgotten pipe clenched between his teeth. Hour after hour he sat there, while most of his fellow-chemists finished the day's work and left the building and the room slowly darkened with the ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby

... the humor of such a pronouncement. And, indeed, if here and there a man might have risen to such an appreciation, there were abundant reasons for the repression of the impulse, for there was nothing humorous about the response with which the authorities of the time were wont to meet the expression of iconoclastic opinions. The burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, in the year 1600, was, for example, an object-lesson well calculated to restrain the enthusiasm of other similarly ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... little burgh! existing in all the security of harmless insignificance—unnoticed and unenvied by the world, without ambition, without vain-glory, without riches, without learning, and all their train of carking cares; and as of yore, in the better days of man, the deities were wont to visit him on earth and bless his rural habitations, so we are told, in the sylvan days of New Amsterdam, the good St. Nicholas would often make his appearance in his beloved city, of a holiday afternoon, riding jollily among ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... by that name at last, When all my reveries are past, I call thee, and to that cleave fast, Sweet silent Creature! That breath'st with me in sun and air, Do thou, as thou art wont, repair My heart with gladness, and a share Of thy ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth

... things might have fallen out differently between Doctor Mary and Mr. Beaumaroy. Events would probably have relieved Mary from the necessity of presenting her ultimatum, and she might never have heard that illuminating word "Morocco." But big Neddy the Shover—as his intimate friends were wont to call him—was a man of pleasure as well as of business; he was not a bloke in an office; he liked an ample Christmas vacation and was now taking one with a party of friends at Brighton—all tip-toppers ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony

... brandy for himself, and brought another to the table. "James," said he, addressing me, "Uncle Solomon stands there, for all the world, like a Hickory Quaker. His spirit don't move. I'll see if another spirit wont move it." He compelled the old preacher to swallow the brandy; and then told him to preach and exhort, for the spirit was in him. He set one of the Bibles on fire, and after it was consumed, mixed up the ashes of it in a glass of water, and compelled the old man to drink ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... merchandise. For one trader that was in Louis XI.'s time to be found rich and portly at Paris, Rouen, Lyons, and other good towns of the kingdom, there are to be found in this reign more than fifty; and there are in the small towns greater number than the great and principal cities were wont to have. So much so that scarcely a house is made on any street without having a shop for merchandise or for mechanical art. And less difficulty is now made about going to Rome, Naples London, and elsewhere over-sea than was made formally about going to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... merchant had a son called Ali Nur al-Din, as he were the full moon whenas it meeteth the sight on its fourteenth night, a marvel of beauty and loveliness, a model of form and symmetrical grace, who was sitting one day as was his wont, in his father's shop, selling and buying, giving and taking, when the sons of the merchants girt him around and he was amongst them as moon among stars, with brow flower-white and cheeks of rosy light in down the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... while in the city. And on the night of the Padre's arrival it is said that Juan, with tears streaming down his scarred and wrinkled face, begged to be allowed to confess to him the awful atrocities which he had committed upon the innocent and harmless aborigines when, as was his wont, his breath hot with the lust of blood, he had fallen upon them without provocation and hewed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... thus honored by the gens was, in the Indian dialect, the totem of the clan. This organization and custom we find running all through the Indian tribes. In many tribes the Indians were wont to carve a figure of their totem on a piece of slate, or even to carve a stone in the shape of the totem, which carved or sculptured stone they wore as an ornament, or carried as a charm to ward off evil and bring them good luck. We need only suppose that this system was very ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... wage, which turned from isoceles triangles and algebraic conundrums to solve the essential problems of food and clothing and shingled roofs. It was a new viewpoint which planted doubts where what he had supposed to be certainties had been wont to blossom. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... of afterthought, "the procession will soon be over; come back shortly and see me, if you please." The keen diamond eye twinkled with a humorous, comical expression when these last words were uttered; as much as to say, "I shall manage to cheat you, old fellow, wont I?" ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff

... had long ago decided that he would never cross one. That his resolution had once been broken was not his fault, for they had dragged him over the Oakwood bridge at the end of a stout rope; but this only made him firmer in his determination, and people who drove him were wont to stay on the west side ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... interruption. Some of the buccaneers, however, pretended to hold commissions both from the French and the Dutch; but it was mere pretext. Their authority was in truth nothing more than what the sailors are wont jocosely to call 'a commission from the Pope.' Yet they affected to consider themselves in lawful war against Spain, for the reason that the Spaniards had debarred them from the privileges of hunting in the forests and fishing in the waters of St. Domingo—thus depriving them of the exercise of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... during a melodrama like this, in the midst of its exciting grandeur and all-pervading transport, executed at the Feast of Tabernacles, in the open area of the Temple, when the Jews were wont to pour upon the altar water taken from the pool of Siloam, chanting at the same time the twelfth chapter of Isaiah, and one division of the chorus had just ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... into bed, and fell asleep after his wont, in two minutes' time; but (contrary to his wont) woke up again not long after in that curiously wide-awake condition which sometimes surprises even good sleepers; a condition under which we feel all our wits preternaturally ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris

... world was young, Within the woodland's shady heart had flung The green earth open, and a dark ravine, Through which a streamlet purled o'er mossy-green, Gigantic boulders, formed the chosen lair For ravening beasts that through the forest fare. At night or morn the deer were wont to seek The freshening nectar of the crystal creek; At night or morn the pard, with stealthy tread, Crept softly out upon the boughs o'erhead; A wanderer from rocky realms remote, Here laved the mountain bear his ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various

... Jean Duval arrived, as was his wont, supercilious and brusque as usual. I was just explaining to him that I hoped to have excellent news for him after the next performance of Le Reve when there was a peremptory ring at the bell. I went to open the door, and there stood a police inspector in uniform ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... weapon of war and the chase, which has won so many battles and conquered so many kingdoms, has since the introduction of gunpowder been too readily allowed to sink into a plaything for boys. They retain something of a passion for it. Many can remember when they were wont to select the choicest splits of heart-hickory from the wood-pile, lay them aside to season, and then shape them, or have them shaped by stronger and defter hands, into the four-foot bow, equivalent to the six-foot bow of the man. The arrows were harder to get ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... convinced that he reflected enormous credit upon them, and their hearts swelled with joy at the thought of the envy they no doubt inspired. This conviction gave rise indeed to terrible quarrels, in which each of the three owners was wont to accuse the ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... first this one and then that one, until, strong as my head is, I got more into it than should have gone there. We are apt to forget ourselves on these occasions. If I had only taken a glass or two, it would have made little difference. But my system was stimulated beyond its wont, and, I fear, will not be in the ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur

... and then reached his ear, called up a strange expression of intelligence which swept across his features with the speed of light, and then left them as quiescent and apparently unintellectual as before. This individual whom we shall name Thomas O'Brien, or Big Tom, as his friends were wont to call him, although never regarded as being over brilliant, there were those who averred that he not only possessed a fund of good, common sense, but who stated further, that he was a man of great influence not only among the soldiers in the fort, but among many ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... clerks are not the pert and gum-chewing young persons that story-writers are wont to describe. The girls at Bascom's are institutions. They know us all by our first names, and our lives are as an open book to them. Kate O'Malley, who has been at Bascom's for so many years that she is rumored to have stock in the company, may be ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... the orchard. The other window opened with a sash above the garden-entrance of the library. In the farther inside corner of the room was a second door giving upon the passage; the door by which the maid was wont to come in, and her mistress to go out, ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... the evening!" Then she made him lie down to sleep, and turning into the lovely maiden went forth upon her beautiful balcony, and cried with a piercing voice: "Nurseys—nurseys! assemble, set to work and weave me a silk carpet such as I was wont to sit upon at ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... and the girl seemed to be turning the thing over in her mind, as was her wont with any new proposition, "there seem to be in history a good many women who never ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... heathen mythology the summer solstice was a day dedicated to the sun, and was believed to be a day on which witches held their festivities. St.-John's-Wort was their symbolical plant, and people were wont to judge from it whether their future would be lucky or unlucky; as it grew they read in its progressive character their future lot. The Christians dedicated this festive period to St. John the Baptist, and the sacred plant was named St.-John's-Wort or root, ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... grief and despair. She asked for a confessor from the Society, which was not granted to her. The Dominican friar who served as parish priest in the village where she was an exile refused to absolve her unless she would comply with certain conditions, with which those fathers are wont to fetter and hinder souls. She was not minded to comply with these, or to make her confession to a religious of that order; and while a Franciscan who had been granted to her was on his way, she died. They spread ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... the valet called him, and was amused with his dream. Not in years had such an interest entered his life. He rose, tubbed and breakfasted, and went, as was his wont, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... consequence of this has been that I begin to measure the temerity of my having saddled you with a knowledge that you may find something of a burden. Now that the fit's over I can't imagine how I came to be moved so much beyond my wont. I had never before mentioned, no matter in what state of expansion, the fact of my little secret, and I shall never speak of that mystery again. I was accidentally so much more explicit with you than it had ever entered into my game to be, that I find this game—I ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... THE PERIOD. It seems a curious contradiction, at first glance, to place the return of Charles II at the beginning of modern England, as our historians are wont to do; for there was never a time when the progress of liberty, which history records, was more plainly turned backwards. The Puritan regime had been too severe; it had repressed too many natural pleasures. Now, released from restraint, society abandoned ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... and vigorous, he carried himself with a half-military self- respect, redeemed from aggressiveness by an open candor of face and the pleasant, forthright gaze of kindly blue-gray eyes. In spite of a certain gravity of mien, his eyes seemed wont to smile upon occasion, as witnessed divers little wrinkles at the corners. He was smooth- shaven, except for a well-trimmed dark mustache; the latter offering a distinct contrast to the color of his hair, which, apparently not in full keeping with his years, was lightly sprinkled ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... little monkey! I believe they brave every danger. I wonder if we shall ever learn anything about her. The Sieur has so much on hand, and men are wont to drop the thread of a pursuit or get it tangled up with other things, so it would be too much of a burthen to ask him. And another year I shall go to Paris myself. If she does not develop too much waywardness, and keeps her good ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... vanished, and that he confronted what at least seemed a fellow-mortal, in the ancient ratcatcher, habited precisely as Cardinal Barbadico had described, yet, for all his mean apparel, wearing the air of one wont to confer with the potentates of the earth on other subjects than the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... responsive to her merry mood, and his courage ever swelling under the suasion of it, he answered her in a fearless, daring fashion that was oddly unlike his wont. But then, he was that day ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... at last to escape these gloomy thoughts. Alves followed him without a word. He did not offer her his arm, as he was wont to do when they walked out here beyond the paths where people came. She respected his mood, and falling a step behind, followed the winding road that led around the ruined Court of Honor to the esplanade. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... glimpse at Rome they show 'Twixt cypresses, a stately row, Where all who pass are free to see The villa of the Priory. Here belted knights, with cross on breast, In days of old were wont to rest, And 'neath the ilex hedges tall Oft paced the subtle Cardinal, His robe upon the pavement cool ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... yet to enrich mankind. And even if all wider interests be left out of view, enough remains to justify Cavour's policy of respect for the independence of the Church in the fact that Italy during the thirty years succeeding the establishment of its union has remained free from civil war. Cavour was wont to refer to the Constitution which the French National Assembly imposed upon the clergy in 1790 as the type of erroneous legislation. Had his own policy and that of his successors not been animated by a wiser spirit; had the Government of Italy, after ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... to the scraps of conversation which came up through the cabin skylight, growing a little louder than usual, for, as was occasionally the case, an argument was afloat respecting the late war, the doctor according to his wont growing wroth upon an allusion being made by his guest to the ex-Emperor Napoleon; and there were evidently threatenings of a storm, which was, however, suppressed by the grave dignity of the Count and a feeling of annoyance which attacked ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn

... the gentry are wont to gather daily at some Chandimandap (a rustic temple dedicated to the goddess Durga, attached to most better-class houses). Kumodini Babu's was a favourite rendezvous, and much time was killed there in conversation, ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... the tree of life. It was the palm, the tree that furnished the majority of the inhabitants of the district with food, and with fruit from which they distilled a fermented and intoxicating liquor, a kind of wine; the tree to which they were wont to attribute in a popular song as many benefits as there are days in the year—this palm it was that was there considered the sacred, the paradisiacal tree. We have the proof of this in cylinders that show us the palm surmounted by the emblem of the Supreme God, and ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

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

... anesthetics in medicine; was employed by almost all who had any need of mental concentration. A real enlargement of human faculty seemed to have been effected in this direction. The feats of "calculating boys," the wonders, as Graham had been wont to regard them, of mesmerisers, were now within the range of anyone who could afford the services of a skilled hypnotist. Long ago the old examination methods in education had been destroyed by these expedients. Instead of years of study, candidates had substituted a few weeks of trances, and during ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... raised; and the effect was that, on the 18th of March, Casale, delivered "by the mere wind of the renown gained by the king's arms, saw, with tears of joy, the Spaniards retiring desolate, showing no longer that pride which they had been wont to wear on their faces,—looking constantly behind them, not so much from regret for what they were leaving as for fear lest the king's vengeful sword should follow after them, and come to strike their death-blow." [Memoires de Richelieu, t. iv. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... that evening I was more lively than is my wont, for it was a very easy thing to be lively in that family. I do not think I gave any one reason to suppose that I was a man whose attention had been called to a notice not ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... it ever be remembered to the honour of this Prelate, whom Charles I. was wont to call "the good man," and whom he declared to be his greatest comfort in his most afflictive situation, that he delivered his sentiments without disguise to the King, on the subject of Lord Strafford's ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton

... their imprisonment, Marco was wont to tell his traveller's tales to his companion, Rusticiano, and this worthy gentleman conceived the notion of writing out the marvellous adventures and observations of his fellow-prisoner. We must bear in mind that the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various

... was this and right, To which he added more by conquest got, From thence approved men of passing might He brought, that death or danger feared not: It was their wont in feasts to spend the night, And pass cold days in baths and houses hot. Five thousand late, of which now scantly are The third part left, such ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... the cowlick on his head. He wore his look of a seven-year-old with which he was wont to face the extremity of ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... a horrified wonder behind. The surgeon gazed on, and the trouble in Charley's eye passed to his face, stayed an instant. Then he turned away to Jo Portugais. "I am thirsty now," he said, and he touched his lips in the way he was wont to do in those countless ages ago, when, millions upon millions of miles away, people said: "There ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... exercises that embody the worship of God. Parallel to the last quoted passage is this which follows. "Him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship, and to him shall ye do sacrifice." To swear by his name is not to do sacrifice; and is therefore to perform another part of his worship. The oath was wont to come before the altar of the Lord, where sacred services alone should be performed. As a form of calling on the name of God, it was associated with the exercise of giving thanks to him, and is regarded as a tender ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham

... cool and stolid as ever; but any one looking closely at him would have observed that he puffed his pipe a little oftener than was his wont, while his eye beamed more kindly upon his ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis

... called the gods above to witness, and him, too, who had given the chariot to Phaton, that unless he gives assistance all things will perish in direful ruin, mounts aloft to the highest eminence, from which he is wont to spread the clouds over the spacious earth; and from which he moves his thunders, and burls the brandished lightnings. But then he had neither clouds that he could draw over the earth, nor showers that he could pour down from ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... them, and try to seem A fourth for the old queer merry three, With my fame as much of a yearning dream As my morrow's dinner was wont to be. ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various

... evening, contrary to his wont, he allowed himself to be drawn into the May drawing-room, and there fell into one of the bright bantering talks in which the two old friends delighted, quizzing each other, and bringing up stories of their life; while Ethel and Gertrude ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... eye, alas! That wont the deer pursue, Along the waves of rippling grass, Or fields that ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... now invades And takes Possession of my Breast? Unfaithful Traytor, I'd be thy Death, but that my Heart wont give ...
— Amadigi di Gaula - Amadis of Gaul • Nicola Francesco Haym

... scenting sins far off, And the swift hounds of violent death devour. Be man at one with equal-minded gods, So shall he prosper; not through laws torn up, Violated rule and a new face of things. A woman armed makes war upon herself, Unwomanlike, and treads down use and wont And the sweet common honour that she hath, Love, and the cry of children, and the hand Trothplight and mutual mouth of marriages. This doth she, being unloved, whom if one love, Not fire nor iron and the wide-mouthed wars Are ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... say that that was absurd. Since this is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to turn up, as bosses are wont to do. The effect would be no less devastating for the ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... mother, sisters, and especially her brother James, my special friend, I could not help saying that I was pleased to notice that our men had not handled her house and premises as roughly as was their wont. "I owe it to you, general," she answered. "Not at all. I did not know you were here till a few minutes ago." She reiterated that she was indebted to me for the perfect safety of her house and property, and added, "You remember, when ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... watched by the side of an invalid mother, would not feel an exalted pleasure in creating around her the magical representations of those flowerets and rosebuds her maternal hand was wont to rear? Who, in such a moment of ministering affection, would not feel how sweet the reward of a father's love, as his approving gaze spoke more than many words his thanks to the duteous child returning the early care of the fond partner of his griefs and joys? Contemplating ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey

... run to the altar-foot Hard by, and haste the people from the rite, Horsemen and footmen at the height of speed To race unto the parting of the roads Where travellers from both gorges wont to meet. Lest there the maidens pass beyond our reach And I be worsted by this stranger's might And let him laugh at me. Be swift! Away! —For him, were I as wroth as he deserves, He should not go unpunished from my hand. But now he shall be ruled by the same law He thought to enforce. Thou goest ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... one day in London, standing out in Lombard Street, where the merchants were wont to meet to transact business, and had been exposed to much damp and cold; the heavy rain frequently compelling us, with other persons, to seek shelter in the shops near where we happened to be standing, when, on our return to Gresham ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... temper—appeared to think that his work was cut out for him, and the time arrived in which to do it. Pawing and snorting at the noise, he suddenly slewed round, and headed down the steep bank, through the undergrowth, straight for the crowd, as he had been wont to do after many a mob of weaners on his native plains. The blacks drew hurriedly back to the top of the opposite bank, shouting and gesticulating violently, and leaving one solitary figure, apparently covered with some scarecrow rags, and part of a hat, prominently alone in the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... perhaps a lifetime in the far East, her own dim uncertain future looked dark and dreary. The blazing sun went down at last, the fiery radiance of the pulpit window faded, and the birds that frequented the quiet sheltered enclosure sought their perches in the thickest foliage where they were wont to sleep. But there was no abatement of the heat. The air was sulphurous, and its inspiration was about as refreshing as a draught from Phlegethon; while the distant occasional growl had grown into a frequent thunderous muttering that deepened ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... beard nor whisker—which was rather odd for a sailor, whose opportunities for shaving are none of the best. But Ben liked a clean face, and always kept one. He was no sea dandy, however, and never exhibited himself, even on Sundays, with fine blue jacket and fancy collars as some others were wont to do. On the contrary, his wear was dark blue Guernsey shirt, fitting tight to his chest, and displaying the fine proportions of his arms and bust. His neck a sculptor would have admired from its bold regular outline, ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

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

... of the family were still young enough to write the names of the presents which they would be glad to receive, or to denote them by rude hieroglyphs, on large sheets of paper. They were wont to pin up these sheets on certain doors, which, by long usage in this free-and-easy family, had come to be regarded as the bulletin-boards of the establishment. Well-nigh every range of created things had some representation ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... time we have been discovering that vast numbers of our farming population live in a poverty more abject than that of many of the farmers of Europe whom we are wont to call peasants; that the prices of our products of agriculture are too often dependent on speculation by non-farming groups; and that foreign nations, eager to become self-sustaining or ready to put virgin land ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... spent in his studio working over some unfinished pictures. At my urgent request, he completed the head whose resemblance to Hester Chaffin had so startled and amazed me the night I saw it first, and he regarded it with fonder interest than he was wont to bestow upon the work of his brush. I believe that face was the closest presentment of a human soul I shall ever see until standing, as I hope to stand some time, in the presence of the redeemed, where "that which is imperfect shall be put away." I have said that the picture ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller

... obscure. These children may not be shy enough to suffer any self-checking in their talk, but they are now and then to be heard slurring a word of which they do not feel too sure. A little girl whose sensitiveness was barely enough to cause her to stop to choose between two words, was wont to bring a cup of tea to the writing-table of her mother, who had often feigned indignation at the weakness of what her Irish maid always called "the infusion." "I'm afraid it's bosh again, mother," said the child; and then, in a half-whisper, "Is bosh ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... is the father of all the Sticks. And the Raven spake to the lonely White Man, saying: "Bind thou thy moccasins upon thee, and gird thy snow-shoes on, and lash thy sled with food for many sleeps and fine tokens for the Chief Thling-Tinneh. For thou shalt turn thy face to where the mid-spring sun is wont to sink below the land and journey to this great chief's hunting-grounds. There thou shalt make big presents, and Thling-Tinneh, who is my son, shall become to thee as a father. In his lodge there is a maiden into whom I breathed the breath of life for thee. This maiden ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London

... all his cunning and shrewdness, bait him in the field, or set your trap by some carcass where he is wont to come. In some cases he will uncover the trap, and leave the marks of his contempt for it in a way you cannot mistake, or else he will not approach within a rod of it. Occasionally, however, he finds in a trapper more than his match, and is fairly caught. When this ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... a man of about fifty years of age. Report said that in his youth he had been wild, and some of his contemporary commanders in the service were wont to plague him by narrating divers freaks of former days, the recollection of which would create any thing but a smile upon his face. Whether report and the other captains were correct or not in their assertions, Captain Drawlock was in appearance quite a different character at the ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... had ceased, and the sun was shining out. Down the village street walked the two boys enjoying their freedom more soberly than was their wont. ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre

... the rent, were anciently, it was supposed, bound to perform a great number of services to the landlord, which were seldom either specified in the lease, or regulated by any precise rule, but by the use and wont of the manor or barony. These services, therefore, being almost entirely arbitrary, subjected the tenant to many vexations. In Scotland the abolition of all services not precisely stipulated in the lease, has, in the course of a few years, very much altered for the better ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... temper and impression. Morning there, Here eve was by almost such passage made; And whiteness had o'erspread that hemisphere, Blackness the other part; when to the left I saw Beatrice turn'd, and on the sun Gazing, as never eagle fix'd his ken. As from the first a second beam is wont To issue, and reflected upwards rise, E'en as a pilgrim bent on his return, So of her act, that through the eyesight pass'd Into my fancy, mine was form'd; and straight, Beyond our mortal wont, I fix'd mine eyes Upon the sun. Much ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... the sake of the ready laugh that always followed the few thick, stammering words and the stupid drooping of the jaw at the end of each short speech. Perhaps Squire Hall was the only one in Lewes Hundred who mis-doubted that Hiram was half-witted. He had had dealings with him and was wont to say that whoever bought Hiram White for a fool made a fool's bargain. Certainly, whether he had common wits or no, Hiram had managed his mill to pretty good purpose and was fairly well off in the world as prosperity went in southern Delaware and in those days. No doubt, ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle



Words linked to "Wont" :   wont to, tradition



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