For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable --they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its
fickleness --and when retained for any object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and employment should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the final dash.
But our travellers had scarcely the time to catch even this glimpse of it, for, with the
fickleness that characterizes the air-currents of this region, a contrary wind suddenly swept them some forty miles over the surface of Lake Tchad.
He did indeed account somewhat unfairly for this sudden change; for besides some hard and unjust surmises concerning female
fickleness and mutability, he began to suspect that he owed this want of civility to his want of horses; a sort of animals which, as they dirty no sheets, are thought in inns to pay better for their beds than their riders, and are therefore considered as the more desirable company; but Mrs Whitefield, to do her justice, had a much more liberal way of thinking.
Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace sometimes gratified their
fickleness, or their better impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some set-off against their swollen account of cruel rage.
Its
fickleness is to be held true to men's purposes only by an undaunted resolution and by a sleepless, armed, jealous vigilance, in which, perhaps, there has always been more hate than love.
we're not accusing you of
fickleness," said Christie gayly; "although you didn't come, and we were obliged to ask Mr.
That he had been new to women and newer still to love did not permit him to excuse himself, and a hundred times he cursed his folly and stupidity, and what he thought was
fickleness.
But God laughs at the presumption of man, who wants to raise and prostrate the powers on earth without consulting the King above; and the
fickleness and caprice of the Dutch combined with the terror inspired by Louis XIV.
There are the brave champion, whether noble or common man, who conquers or falls against overwhelming odds; the faithful lover of either sex; the woman whose constancy, proving stronger than man's
fickleness, wins back her lover to her side at last; the traitorous old woman (victim of the blind and cruel prejudice which after a century or two was often to send her to the stake as a witch); the loyal little child; and some few others.
He was disgusted with himself, surprised at his own
fickleness, and full of a queer mixture of disappointment and relief that he could recover from such a tremendous blow so soon.
With the
fickleness of insanity he quickly tired of the search, and, turning to the soldiers who had accompanied him from the floor below, dismissed them.
And Mortimer, whose name is for ever blotted out from my list of lovers, by reason first of
fickleness and then of base desertion, how do YOU do, wretch?
