"Willy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... absolutely; he resented it most keenly. None the less, the one course open to him was to submit as little ungraciously as he was able. No moral force would be able to dislodge his guest; and Ramsdell could not well be summoned, to pluck forth the rector's lady and escort her, willy-nilly, to the ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... why I am a socialist. I'll tell you. It is because Socialism is inevitable; because the present rotten and irrational system cannot endure; because the day is past for your man on horseback. The slaves won't stand for it. They are too many, and willy- nilly they'll drag down the would-be equestrian before ever he gets astride. You can't get away from them, and you'll have to swallow the whole slave-morality. It's not a nice mess, I'll allow. But it's been a- brewing and swallow it you must. ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... summer is even more depressing in its immediate effects than the cold of winter, but the heat carries with it one blessing, in that it drives us, willy-nilly, into the open air, day and night. And on looking at statistics we find precisely what might have been expected on this theory, that the death-rate for pneumonia is lowest in July ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... pass to and fro cannot. As we grow older, we cease to see it, but it exists all the same. As I write, five children are romping through this old wood on broom-handle horses. One has just fallen. A girl of twelve at once retorts, "Do get up, Willy, your horse is always throwing you off." The joys of life lie in us, not in things; and in childhood imagination is so big, its joys so entirely uncloyed. Sometimes grown-ups are apt to grudge the time and trouble put into apparently transient pleasures. ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... clothin'-store's a willy wonder, sure. De old mug what showed me round give me de frozen face when I come in foist. 'What's doin'?' he says. 'To de woods wit' you. Git de hook!' But I hauls out de plunks you give me, an' tells him how I'm here to get a dude suit, an', gee! if he ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... the religious life will vary in children and in families. The commonest error is to expect some one popular form alone, to imagine that all children must pass through some standardized experiences. Mrs. Brown's Willy may rise in prayer meeting. Do not be downhearted. Willy is only doing that which he has seen his parents do, and, usually, only because they do it. Your boy, or girl, is seeking health of life, of thought, of action; ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... "Polly" is one of those "hypocorisms," or pet-names, in which our language abounds. Most are mere abbreviations, as Will, Nat, Pat, Bell, &c., taken usually from the beginning, sometimes from the end of the name. The ending y or ie is often added, as a more endearing form: as Annie, Willy, Amy, Charlie, &c. Many have letter-changes, most of which imitate the pronunciation of infants. L is lisped for r. A central consonant is doubled. O between m and l is more easily sounded than ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... late Speaker) says he would take a good big bet that it won't pass. Your Papa says he is ready to bet against him that it will. Will Ministers dissolve Parliament if beaten? To that I must answer I don't know. I heard Mr. Gladstone's speech. As Willy says, the latter part was very eloquent. It was all good; but the details of a Suffrage Act are tiresome, and the apparent indifference, or even apathy, of our side of the House allowed even the striking passages ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... they've stormed him—they've smoked him out like a wasp's nest. My goodness—he did buzz! Undershaw found a man badly hurt, lying on the road by the bridge—bicycle accident—run over too, I believe—and carried him into the Tower, willy-nilly!" The speaker chuckled. "Melrose was away. Old Dixon said they should only come in over his body—but was removed. Undershaw got four labourers to help him, and, by George, they carried the man in! They found the drawing-room downstairs empty, no furniture in it, or next ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... discourse I would add the informal word, this New Year's Day, that this type is best illustrated by such fairy-tales as have been most ingratiatingly retold in the books of Padraic Colum, and dazzlingly illustrated by Willy Pogany. The Colum-Pogany School of Thought is one which the commercial producers have not yet condescended to illustrate in celluloid, and it remains a special province for the Art Museum Film. Fairy-tales need not be more than one-tenth ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... hands with me. The Prince of Wales has a very good countenance; the baby I should call a very fine child indeed. The Queen said, After your own you must think them dwarfs; but I answered that I did not think the Princess Royal short as compared with Willy. We had more cards last evening; Lady —— made more blunders and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... only such as are willing to go, men-at-arms and archers; but when we have troubles such as took place but five or six years ago, when Douglas and Percy and the Welsh all joined against us, then the lords call out their vassals and the sheriffs the militia of the county, and we have to go to fight willy- nilly. Our lord had a hundred of us with him to fight for the king at Shrewsbury. Nigh thirty never came back again. That is worse than the ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... "Willy-nilly, you must take part in a terrible battle; book against book, man against man, party against party; make war you must, and that systematically, or you will be abandoned by your own party. And they are mean contests; struggles which leave you disenchanted, and wearied, and ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... told they can't exist, That Nature would not let them: But Willy Spook, the Humanist, Declares ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... Bartholomew Stibbs. Being furnished with the requisite means for sailing up the Gambia, Stibbs sailed in September, 1723, and, on the 7th of October, he arrived at James' Island, the English settlement, situate about thirty miles from the mouth of the river, whence he despatched a messenger to Mr. Willy, the governor, who happened at that time to be visiting the factory at Joar, more than a hundred miles distant, asking him to engage such vessels as were fit to navigate the upper streams of the Gambia. To his great surprise and mortification, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... shall get it done. Furthermore, I shall send the chapters to Herring, Beemer, & Chadwick as I write them, so that there must be no failure. I shall be compelled to finish the tale, whatever may happen, and Miss Andrews shall go through to the bitter end, willy-nilly." ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... smiled. "Miss Yardwell? Yes—she is one of our most valued pupils. Certainly—Willy!" he called to a small boy who carried a livery of startling newness, "go tell Miss Yardwell a gentleman would like to ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... refused, the fellow dealt me a blow, and laid me down senseless, to bear me off willy nilly, but that good old Lucas Hansen brought mine uncle ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lord Farquhart? Well, Mr. Clarence Treadway, for one. They're never twenty-four hours apart, so London says. Then there is Mr. Ashley, an old suitor of the Lady Barbara, to whom her father forced her to give a refusal willy-nilly. London knows all about that. And—and there's one other. I've forgotten his name. It matters not. And the gentlemen travel with a servant apiece. Oh, the other's Mr. Lindley, Mr. Cecil Lindley. Why, lad, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... father openly upbraids me with being fickle, inconstant, unmaidenly, and I know not what besides, until I am driven to my wit's end to keep the peace between us. Yet I doubt not, if he knew the truth, he would marry me willy-nilly to ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... live as I like here. I come down for a month's holiday, to rest and all, and am plagued so by their nonsense that I long to escape after the first day. [Laughing] I have always been glad to get away from this place, but I have been retired now, and this was the only place I had to come to. Willy-nilly, one must ...
— The Sea-Gull • Anton Checkov
... a housewife of high degree, and would not have thought of leaving—perhaps for months—her immaculate window-panes and her spotless floors and furniture, had she not also left some one to take care of them. A distant cousin, Miss Willy Croup, had lived with her since her husband's death, and though this lady was willing to stay during Mrs. Cliff's absence, Mrs. Cliff considered her too quiet and inoffensive to be left in entire charge of her possessions, and Miss Betty Handshall, a worthy maiden of ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... executed a remarkable spring into the air, finished off with a little kick. "Oh, golly!..." she breathed. "Here's Dutch Willy come flying to the arms of ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... he said at last and sadly, oh, so sadly, as Aileen turned away. "Have it yer own way, if ye will. Ye must go, though, willy-nilly. It can't be any other way. I ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... apprehensiveness; albeit it was not difficult to perceive that, sorrowfully as had passed her noon of prime, an "Indian summer" of the soul was rising upon her brightened existence, and already with its first faint flushes lighting up her meek, doubting eyes, and pale, changing countenance. Willy, her feeble-minded child, frisked and gambolled by their side; and altogether, a happier group than they would, I fancy, have been difficult to find ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... had little learning; the reference to Dryden's view as to the date of Pericles; the statement that Venus and Adonis is the only work that Shakespeare himself published; the identification of Spenser's "pleasant Willy" with Shakespeare; the account of Jonson's grudging attitude toward Shakespeare; the attack on Rymer and the defence of Othello; and the discussion of the Davenant-Dryden Tempest, together with the quotation from Dryden's ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... said he, "it is only my sister Nightmare; we twain are going to pay our brother Death {43b} a visit, and want a third to accompany us, and lest thou shouldst resist we came upon thee, just as he does, unawares. Consequently come thou must, willy-nilly." "Alas," I cried, "must I die?" "Nay," said Nightmare, "we will spare thee this time." "But an't please you," said I, "your brother Death has never spared anyone yet who came beneath his stroke—he who wrestled with the ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... which we were once so rich, that extensive losses here have failed to make us poor; so many of its words still surviving, even after as many or more have disappeared. I refer to those double words which either contain within themselves a strong rhyming modulation, such for example as 'willy-nilly', 'hocus-pocus', 'helter-skelter', 'tag-rag', 'namby-pamby', 'pell-mell', 'hodge-podge'; or with a slight difference from this, though belonging to the same group, those of which the characteristic feature is not ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... touched the threshold, Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about And makes for town again. In such a way Each human flees himself—a self in sooth, As happens, he by no means can escape; And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes, Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail. Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then, Leaving all else, he'd study to divine The nature of things, since here is in debate Eternal time and not the single hour, ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... Willy-nilly he accompanied his captor to the extremely private and secluded rear of Tom Kane's new barn. Here were the remains of a broken wagon, several wheels, and the major portion of a venerable and useless stove. Marie released ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... immediate topic, the poet who essays dramatic composition on mere abstract impulse, because other poets have done so, or because he is told that it pays, is only too likely to produce willy-nilly a "closet drama." Let him beware of saying to himself, "I will gird up my loins and write a play. Shall it be a Phaedra, or a Semiramis, or a Sappho, or a Cleopatra? A Julian, or an Attila, or a Savanarola, ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... had risen, advanced stiffly and reached out her hand in gingerly fashion. But Mrs. Middleton gathered her, willy-nilly, into a warm embrace, holding her close ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... therefore the maiden was flung down the steps before him—slight, dainty, with a wealth of blonde hair, and a pitiful sob in her voice which drew a lump into John's throat, willy-nilly. ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... but a boy and not like to know more than I did.' But the corporal said, 'That we will see. Is the lad here?' So I ups and said nay, but I'd seen you digging your croft, and then they bade me fetch you. So you must come, willy-nilly, or they may send ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as much as any. He was indeed honest and of an open and free nature,"*** said another. Others still called him a good fellow, gentle Shakespeare, sweet Master Shakespeare. I should like to think, too, that Spenser called him "our pleasant Willy." But wise folk tell us that these words were not spoken of Shakespeare but of some one else whose name ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... large sunshade of old gold satin lined with indigo, the flounced petticoat of softest Indian silk, the dainty little tan-coloured boots with high heels and pointed toes, were all perfect after their fashion; and Mr. Smithson felt that the liege lady of his life, the woman he meant to marry willy nilly, would be the belle of the race-course. Nor was he disappointed. Everybody in London had heard of Lady Lesbia Haselden. Her photograph was in all the West-End windows, was enshrined in the albums of South Kensington and Clapham, Maida Vale and Haverstock Hill. People ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the lancet hurts," Dr. Lavendar admitted; "but it's better than—well, I don't know the terms of your trade, Willy-but I guess ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... herring boat, and though she isn't fascinatingly beautiful, she can sail. Dick—helped by Brownie—decked her over, and Dick picked up a new set of sails last year from a man who was selling off his gear. Have you put in the bait and the lines, Willy?" ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... But Willy was thick-set; and freckled and fair; Had eyes of light blue, and short curly red hair; And, as I should like you the whole truth to know, The ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... be true, that's no to do," said the smith, blowing the froth from the cap in which Dame Lugton handed him the ale, and taking a right good-willy waught. ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... looked his best out of doors, when his thick red hands were covered by gloves, and the dull red of his sunburned face somehow seemed right in the light and wind. He looked better, too, with his hat on; his hair was thin and dry, with no particular color or character, "regular Willy-boy hair," as he himself described it. His eyes were pale beside the reddish bronze of his skin. They had the faded look often seen in the eyes of men who have lived much in the sun and wind and who have been accustomed to train their vision ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... There is the crew of a four-engined transport ship, who argued over my manuscript and settled the argument by a zestful, full-scale crash-landing drill—repeat, "drill"—expressly to make sure I had described all the procedure just right. There is Willy Ley, whom I would like to exempt from responsibility for any statement in the book, while I acknowledge the value of personal talks with him and the pleasure anybody who has ever read his books will recognize. And there is Dr. Hugh S. Rice of the Hayden Planetarium, who will probably be surprised ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... "Willy, you will do a favor for me, won't you? I want you to take these two friends of mine up to the head of the river, wherever that is. My ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... And out spoke Willy o' the Kirkhill, "Of fighting, lads, ye'se hae your fill." And from his horse Willie he lap, And a burnished brand in his ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... old Hall in the neighborhood of one of our large towns, and there I saw the influence of music upon many animals. There was a beautiful horse, the pride and delight of us all, and like many others, he disliked being caught. One very hot summer day I was sitting at work in the garden, when old Willy the gardener ...
— Harper's Young People, March 9, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... come to my party!" said Jenny to Prue; "I'm going to have Willy, and Nelly, and you; I'm going to have candy and cake and ice-cream, We'll play Hunt-the-Slipper, we'll laugh and we'll scream. We'll dress up in caps, we'll have stories and tricks, And you won't have to go till a quarter past six!" But alas! When she mentioned her party, at tea, Her mother said, ...
— More Goops and How Not to Be Them • Gelett Burgess
... the ships in Thames mouth, was over in a month's time, from mid-May to mid-June, so quickly that the enemy had little chance to seize the advantage. The Dutch, driven willy-nilly into alliance with France and not too eager to embark upon desperate adventures in the new cause, were nevertheless not restrained from action by any kind feeling for England, who had seized their ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... endeavoured to think out a plan of escape, but his thoughts wandered, willy nilly. They were taken up with the iron. And gradually he began to comprehend how much thinking and calculating men must have done before they discovered how to produce iron from ore, and he seemed ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... The plumber's son, Willy Steen, came over from the corner saloon to see what was going on, and Annie introduced him ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... that extraordinary series of telegrams in the famous "Willy-Nicky" correspondence between Kaiser Wilhelm and the last of the Romanoffs, discovered in Petrograd by Herman Bernstein. These reveal, moreover, the surpassing craft of the German Kaiser. He was the master schemer. Touting for German trade, always for his advantage, he ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... this Universe, and why not knowing, Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing: And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, I ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... but poverty. And this man could not be poor even if he wanted to, for there were no grounds for divorce. His wife loved him dearly, and her income of five thousand dollars a month came along with startling regularity, willy-nilly. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... only car in public service at the Paulmouth railroad station and Willy Peebles seldom had a fare to Cardhaven. Noah Coffin's ark was good enough for most Cardhaven folk if they did not own equipages of ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... to be a man of natural intelligence, of individual character, absolutely open and broad minded; and show how the Creator of the earth has got him in a rat trap—put him here "willy nilly" (you know the Omar verse); and then I want to show what he does about it. There is always the eternal question from the Primal Source—"What are you going ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... her—affectionately.] I know. [Vigorously.] You must, that's all there is to it! If you want my advice, you go right ahead and don't tell Curt until it's a fact he'll have to learn to like, willy-nilly. You'll find, in his inmost heart, he'll ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... the time when Aunt Betty an' Alice Sent fer me up ta lewk at mi clooas, An' aw walked up as prahd as a Frenchman fra Calais, Wi' mi tassel at side, i' mi jacket a rose, Aw sooin saw mi uncles, both Johnny and Willy, They both gav' me pennies an' off aw did steer; But aw heeard 'em say this, "He's a fine lad is Billy, I't' first pair o' britches ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... too much to say, that the works of Raleigh and Bacon, and others whose connection with it is not necessary to specify just here, are written throughout in the language of this school. 'Our glorious Willy'—(it is the gentleman who wrote the 'Faery Queene' who claims him, and his glories, as 'ours'),—'our glorious Willy' was born in it, and knew no other speech. It was that 'Round Table' at which Sir Philip Sydney presided then, that his lurking meanings, his unspeakable ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... they can eat. Thou wouldst but outwit us and thou art of those who, when some good fortune cometh to them unforeseen, do straightways abandon their work or their business and, wasting all in pleasuring, become once more poor and thereafter must nilly-willy eke out a living as best they may. This methinks be especially the case with thee; thou hast squandered our gift with all speed and now art needy as before." "O good my lord, not so," cried I; "this blame and these hard words ill befit my deserts, for I am wholly innocent of all thou imputest ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... the grease-can and get down to the main door to let Little Willy and his junk-brokers in. You can have ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... any one knows, there may be some divine reason that prompts women to find excuses in such matters—which, in a way, forces them willy-nilly to the making of ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... not really said that he contemplated sending her willy-nilly, to Aunt Almira. Yet the girl felt that daddy believed her health called for a change. And that was not what she needed. She was sure that the air of Poketown would never in this world make her feel any happier or healthier than she felt right ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long
... sound of it he glanced up, in time to see Mr. Banner drop the other end of the tape and run. Almost willy-nilly he followed, vaguely wondering if there had happened some accident that ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Prince of Evil whom Gustave Dore portrayed into a—Hun. Henceforth we shall envisage Satan as a Hun, talking the obscene tongue—now almost the universal language in Hades—and hailed by right-thinking Huns as the All Highest War Lord. Willy senior must be jealous. ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... taste for metaphysics and political economy; she had beautiful theories of education, which she was always intending, at some future time, to put into practice for the benefit of her three little boys, Harry, Willy, and Jack. She spoke of these theories, with her blue eyes fixed on vacancy and her fork poised gracefully in the air, while Vivian laboured distastefully through his dinner, and Percival frowned in silence at ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Verhaeltniss des Physischen zum Psychischen, 2. Auff. Wilhelm Schuppe: Grundriss der Erkenntnisstheorie und Logik. Friedrich Carstanjen: Einfuehrung in die "Kritik der reinen Erfahrung"—an exposition of Avenarius. Also articles by the above, R. Willy, R. v. Schubert-Soldern, and others, in the Vierteljahrsschrift ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... In the two types of behavior already discussed, man is, as it were, "pushed from behind." In the case of instinct he performs an action simply because he must perform it. Willy-nilly he withdraws his hand from fire, eats when hungry, and sleeps when tired. In the case of habits, once they are acquired, he is also largely dominated by circumstances beyond his own control. The bottle is to the confirmed drunkard almost an ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... thus, 'O, Love, O, Charitee, Thy moder eek, Citherea the swete, 1255 After thy-self next heried be she, Venus mene I, the wel-willy planete; And next that, Imeneus, I thee grete; For never man was to yow goddes holde As I, which ye han brought fro ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Chaucer, and the Introductory Discourse to the Canterbury Tales, are taken from the valuable edition of his original works published by Mr Tyrwhitt." The Introductory Discourse is so taken; but it is plain that poor, dear, fibbing Willy Lipscomb had not looked into it, for it contradicts throughout all the statements in the life of Chaucer, which is not from Tyrwhitt, but clumsily cribbed piecemeal by Willy himself from that rambling and inaccurate one by a Mr Thomas ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... o' Nabs, in a tone of bitter disappointment; "yo winnaw go, neaw aw's prepared. By th' Mess, boh yo shan. Ey'st nah go back to Ebil empty-handed. If yo'n sworn to stay here, ey'n sworn to set yo free, and ey'st keep meh oath. Willy nilly, yo shan go wi' meh, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... forced to take provisions from the station in return — When you couldn't keep a chicken at your humpy on the run, For the squatter wouldn't let you — and your work was never done; When you had to leave the missus in a lonely hut forlorn While you 'rose up Willy Riley' — in the days ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... way down the lane, Willy-um," said Uncle Mo, who could hardly be expected to identify Billy's variant of Coup d'Etat. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... horrible mien. The electric cars, the crowds, the murders they read of and are told of, the bandits in the picture-shows, the fearful stranglers of Paris, the lynchers, the police, who in the films are always beating the poor, as in real life, the pickpockets, and the hospitals where willy-nilly they render one unconscious and remove one's vermiform appendix—all these are nightmares to the aborigines ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... the change of subjects, answered simply that Willy, the tobacconist at the corner of Fenchurch Street, ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... her, willy-nilly, and as he came down the hall towards her, she was struck by the keenness and intelligence of his dark face. She told herself grudgingly that he had certainly improved amazingly, at any rate in outward appearance, during ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... "dug-out" was more like an Indian kik-willy (ancient Indian house) than the dwelling of a modern Anglo-Saxon. The walls were composed of the rough timbers, and the chinks were stuffed with rags and old newspapers. A few smoke-begrimed pictures were hanging on the walls, and a calendar of the year 1881 still glared forth in all ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... indication to cook that the constable is willing, if the coast be clear. Tweeny, however, is engrossed, or perhaps she is not in the mood for a follower, so he climbs in at the window undaunted, to take her willy nilly. He is a jolly-looking labouring man, who answers to the name of Daddy, and—But though that may be his island name, we recognise him at once. He is Lord Loam, settled down to the new conditions, and enjoying life ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... in the centre of Mrs. Willy P. Goldmark's yellow and gold drawing-room, under a thousand-candle-power chandelier, with reflectors aimed at her from every point of the compass. I had seen her wincing and shivering there in her outraged nudity at one of the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... Dana, Herman Melville, Clark Russell and many other favorite writers, both British and American. In Smollett's hands, it is a strange muddle of religion, farce and smut, but set forth with a vivid particularity and a gusto f high spirits which carry the reader along, willy-nilly. Such a book might be described by the advertisement of an old inn: "Here is entertainment for man and beast." As to characterization, if a genius for it means the creation of figures which linger in ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... opera, willy-nilly, poetry must be the obedient daughter of music. Why do Italian operas please everywhere, even in Paris, as I have been a witness, despite the wretchedness of their librettos? Because in them music rules and compels us to forget everything else. All the more must an opera please in which ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... scattered along the coast; whereat the honorable East India Company was in a pretty state of fuss and feathers. Rumor, growing with the telling, has it that Avary is going to marry the Indian princess, willy-nilly, and will turn rajah, and eschew piracy as indecent. As for the treasure itself, there was no end to the extent to which it grew as it passed from ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... little—Willy and I—oh, such a weary long year ago!—we lived in a big house, in a wide, quiet street in the old town of Norwich. Now, although the house was so big, there was allotted to it only a small square of garden; a garden exquisitely kept and fostered; a ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... violas and 'celli having been his pupils in chamber music. They had come from all over Europe to take part in the festival. Nearly half of the violins were concert-masters, and many of them famous soloists, as Carl Halir, Henri Petri, Jeno Hubay, Willy Hess, Gustav Hollaender, Gabrielle Wietrowitz, ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... since learned that Seth, and Seth alone, was all her world. Then the old mischievous leaning possessed her, and she resolved, willy-nilly, that Mrs. Rickards, whose love she had long since won, as she won everybody's with whom she came ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... baffles me, I expect, is that I 've the positive, you 've the negative, temperament; I 've the active, you 've the passive; I 've the fertile, you 've the sterile. It's the difference between Yea and Nay, between Willy and Nilly. Serenely, serenely, you will drift to your grave, and never once know what it is to be consumed, harried, driven by a deep, inextinguishable, unassuageable craving to write a song. You 'll never know the heartburn, the unrest, the conscience-sickness, ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... nothing more could be done for him at present. He would come again at any time if summoned by the young man, or if his professional duties should bring him into the neighborhood of the Elden ranch. But Dave declared with prompt finality that the horses must rest until after noon, and the doctor, willy-nilly, spent the morning rambling in the foothills. Meanwhile the girl busied herself with work about the house, in which she was effecting a ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... say she had never been told that it was left to her to do so. When first her aunt had come Kitty had handed over to her the reins of government, willy-nilly, and she had not thought it her duty to take them up again in Mrs. Pike's absence; but it is to be feared that in any case she would not have prepared a feast of welcome for Anna. And the result was that they would arrive tired and hungry after their ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... thus he had no means of judging accurately; but hours—long, maddening hours—seemed to have passed since, with the muzzle of Sin Sin Wa's Mauser pressed coldly to his ear, he had submitted willy-nilly to the adroit manipulations of Mrs. Sin. At first he had believed, in his confirmed masculine vanity, that it would be a simple matter to extricate himself from the fastenings made by a woman; but when, rolling him sideways, she had ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... recent work. It is worth notice that even in this portion of his story the narrator shows no remotest sign of a disposition to crane at any of the numerous fences which lie before him. He takes them all in his stride, and the reader goes with him, willy-nilly, protesting perhaps, but helplessly whirled along in the author's grip. This faculty of daring is sometimes an essential to the story-teller's art, and Hall Caine has it in abundance, not merely in the occasional facing of improbabilities, but in that much loftier ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... Thousands of characters have made their brief appearance on the stage, and have been hustled off to make room for others, but so unerringly are they drawn that we feel that we are in the presence of living people. Take Colette Willy, for example, who comes in on page 2656 at a time when the denouement is clearly at hand. The author, who is working up to his great scene —the appointment of Dr. Norman Wilsmore to the International Commission for the Publication of Annual Tables of Physical ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... "Willy Wagnimble dancing with Flirtilla, Almost as light as air-balloon inflated, Rigadoons around her, 'till the lady's heart ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... others, but it took only a second after they had caught their breaths to pile, willy-nilly, into the cars, where they huddled until the ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... PHOEBE): Nay: let her go. You're young and hard: And I was hard, though far from young: I've long Been growing old; though little I realized How old. And when you're old, you don't judge hardly: You ken things happen, in spite of us, willy-nilly. We think we're safe, holding the reins; and then In a flash the mare bolts; and the wheels fly off; And we're lying, stunned, beneath the broken cart. So, let the lass go quietly; and keep Your happiness. When you're old, you'll not let slip A chance of happiness ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... impossible otherwise: the observer who is confronted with a nature such as Wagner's must, willy-nilly, turn his eyes from time to time upon himself, upon his insignificance and frailty, and ask himself, What concern is this of thine? Why, pray, art thou there at all? Maybe he will find no answer to these questions, in which case he will remain estranged and confounded, face to face ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... not concerned here with the history of music, only with the intimate history of musicians. Piccinni's domestic life was so beautiful, that it makes it all the more pitiable that he should have been dragged willy-nilly into a contest for which he had neither inclination nor ability. Piccinni fell in love with a pupil, like him an Italian, Vicenza Sibilla. When he was twenty-eight he married her. His biographer Ginguene says: "She joined to the charms of her sex, a ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Scientific" members the latest news from the forefront of science in Germany, with especial reference to latest rocket interplanetary developments. Constant improvements on our monthly journal are always sought for. Contributors of well-known reputation are: Willy Ley, Earl D. Streeter, R. P. Starzl, Robt. A. Wait, Dr. Wm. Tyler Olcott, Lilith Lorraine and Dr. D. W. Morehouse, ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... blossoms) 'I'll ne'er get a new love; I love her; she's kindly.' I say, 'I love him too.'" The passing-by stranger's a stranger no longer; He kissed off the teardrop which fell from her e'e; With blue-jacket and trousers he is bigger and stronger; 'T is her own constant Willy returned ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... Pearson," he said, proudly; "but father and mother dying of that fever put us all wrong. Uncle got me to sea, and then, I suppose, he thought he'd done enough; so there was only the workhouse left for Willy. He's the jolliest little chap, Pearson, you ever saw, and I'd work day and night to get him out, if I could; but where's the use? A poor boy like me can do nothing; so I just get in a rage, or don't care about anything, and fight the other ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... and get by the gates with a pass (you had to have a pass or the paddle-rollers would get you,) and you had you a woman. If the woman wasn't willing, a good, hard-working hand could always get the master to make the girl marry him—whether or no, willy-nilly. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... after breakfast, sir! To make calls on the people I've neglected. Willy, how can I find a home for an orphan child? A parson up in the mountains has asked me to see if I can place a little seven-year-old boy. The child's sister who took care of him has just died. Do you know ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... Countess picked up the ladies with her eyes and they rose, to leave the men over their cigars. So Paul was left, to be drawn, willy-nilly, into a discussion of an international alliance, which did not interest ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... Willy Hanlon, as he was called in the papers, came shyly forward and Eunice, with her ready tact, proceeded to put him at once ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... and began dimly to understand them. She knew that Willy Forrest had done this in return for the slight she had put upon him at Henley. He had named his own jockey for the race and chosen one who had little reputation to lose. Between them they would have reason to remember the Royal Hunt Cup for many a day. ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... nineteen hundred and three quarters, or somewhere in Southwark, Merry England, fifteen hundred and same. The truth is that although he loves every last fat part in Shakespeare and will play the skinniest one with loyal and inspired affection, he thinks Willy S. penned Falstaff with nobody else in mind but Sidney J. Lessingham. (And no accent ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... And of these, four-fifths were Germans and Austrians. Many Germans first became Swiss or British subjects in order the more easily to acquire the rights of Frenchmen. One in particular, named Wilhelm Hellpern, first became a Belgian, then as Willy Hellpern a British subject, and finally, with a view to obtaining a place on the Board of the Societe Francaise de l'Industrie Chimique, applied for and received naturalization in France. This "Willy" Hellpern ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... that have never seen the stars. But—and the everlasting, irrefragable fact remains: Her feet are beautiful, her eyes are beautiful, her arms and breasts are paradise, her charm is potent beyond all charm that has ever dazzled men; and, as the pole willy-nilly draws the needle, just so, willy-nilly, does ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... he thought; 'I've only just lain down.' All the same he had to gather his bones together, when each one individually held to the bed; willy-nilly he had to get up. So hard was the resolution sometimes, that he even thought with pleasure of the eternal sleep, when his wife would no longer stand over him and urge: 'Get up, wash...you'll be late; they'll take it off ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... spot came Constable many a hundred times, we may be sure, fishing in the stream, or sketching with his close ally, John Dunthorne, the village plumber, and a lover of nature; their performances with the brush doubtless puzzling old Willy Lott—whose farmhouse occupies the opposite side of the pool; but though his judgment might not have been so technically sound upon art matters as upon the merits of those hornless Suffolk cattle, said to have been unconsciously ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... you can keep them in the straight, but the oxen are dead set on bolting right or left up any road or compound avenue. Boots told me: going to dine one night, he had been taken up to three bungalows willy nilly before he got to the right one. The reins go through bullocks' noses, so by Scripture that should guide them. We went off at a canter, and hadn't got a mile when Boots and Monteith's dumbie dashed at right angles across a bridge to the cemetery; ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... the spectacle when he really took a man in hand for the chastisement of irony. It is thus that "the seraphim illuminati sneer." And in all his controversial writing there was a brilliancy and unsparingness that will appeal to the deepest instincts of a fighting race, willy-nilly; and as one had only to read the words to feel himself among the children of light, so that our withers were ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... to the chamber of Mrs. Marion. On the bed lay Willy, his face flushed with fever, and his eyes ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... enjoy life—when suddenly we find ourselves growing old and decrepit. Our physical and mental powers fail us, and the same force that benevolently created us now mercilessly destroys us, and we are hurled, willy-nilly, back into eternity whence we came. ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... replete with shocks, but the greatest shock was this, when Martin finally and completely realized that the even course of his life had been rudely and permanently changed, that he had been plucked out of his humdrum niche and cast willy-nilly into this violent drama by sportive circumstance. The tumultuous incidents of the previous night arrayed themselves in his mind with something ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... its shareholders, and the working agreement for the new line was transferred to the Oswestry and Newtown, who were already working the Newtown and Llanidloes Railway. The incipient Cambrian, in fact, willy nilly, was now beginning to experience the sensation which comes, sooner or later, to healthily expanding youth, when it has to stand alone. Tumbles there might be ahead, but the day of leading strings ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... shoulder, and masterfully strong, they quickly become conscious of their strength. It is then that performing chimpanzees become unruly, fly into sudden fits of temper, their back hair bristles up, they stamp violently, and sometimes leap into a terrorized orchestra. Next in order, they are retired willy-nilly from the stage, and are offered for sale to zoological parks and gardens having facilities ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... rice, pay-day, pills, and ration, For corned-willy, army fashion, In Hoboken, in the trenches, In a station with the Frenchies, In ...
— "I was there" - with the Yanks in France. • C. LeRoy Baldridge
... her. She would surprise him on his return by opening the door to him upon a house swept and garnished. She would show him that she could be of some use even in such a primitive topsy-turvy world as this into which Fate had thrust her willy-nilly. ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... knew that willy-nilly you would follow me," she cried. And he, taken aback, could not but smile in answer, and profess that she had ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... wind, rising to a gale, lashed the black water into whitecaps. Tom strove vainly to make headway against the storm, but felt himself carried, willy-nilly, he knew not where. He tried to distinguish the light beyond the Baden shore, which he had selected for a beacon, but he could not find it. At last ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... he could trace my luggage but he shook his head. I held out a tempting pourboire. It was of no avail. If I wanted the luggage I could look for it myself. Reflecting that some six weeks at least would be required to complete the search I concluded that I should have to leave it behind willy-nilly. So somewhat depressed I prepared to leave ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... could not possibly have resisted the impulse, for assuredly it was Martha's voice that called—called him back willy nilly to the past that after all was not so far past except in a boy's ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Montagu has no option in the matter," cried O'Sullivan. "He forfeited his right to decide for himself when he blundered in and heard our plans. Willy nilly, he must ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... go to draw a nail, instead of the half-dozen hit-or-miss slips that are the usual fate of such attempts, the bar falls down in front of the nail as the claw grips it from the back. The nail is held in a vise and must come out willy-nilly. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 55, November 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... philosophy or indecision will induce to continue the dog's life I am leading here. I never open a book, but shun them as if they were poison, rise at half-past five o'clock, go to bed at ten, and toil like a galley slave all day, willy, nilly. Man labours for the meat which perisheth, and the ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 7: A Sketch • John Morley
... youth, Willy Shakspeare, jog himself by the memory, and repeat these short verses, not wide ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... The priests, willy-nilly, now permitted Ulrich to be laid on the leathern sack between them, and while first Sutor, and then Stubenrauch, shrunk away to mutter prayers over a rosary for the senseless lad's restoration to consciousness, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... So, Willy, let me and you be wipers Of scores out with all men—especially pipers! And, whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice, If we've promised them aught, let us keep ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... along imperceptibly; by venerable old churches, which I vowed I would take the first opportunity of visiting: stopping now and then to recruit its energies at places, whose old Anglo-Saxon names stared me in the eyes from station boards, as specimens of which, let me only dot down Willy Thorpe, Ringsted, and Yrthling Boro. Quite forgetting everything Welsh, I was enthusiastically Saxon the whole way from Medeshamsted to Blissworth, so thoroughly Saxon was the country, with its rich meads, its old churches and its names. After leaving Blissworth, a thoroughly Saxon place by-the-bye, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... note, and ye may put half-a-crown in the hand of each of the poor weans for a playock, for she's a proud spirit, and will bear much before she complain. Thomas Dowy has been long unable to do a turn of work, so you may give him a note too. I promised that donsie body, Willy Shachle, the betherel, that when I got my legacy, he should get a guinea, which would be more to him than if the colonel had died at home, and he had had the howking of his grave; you may therefore, in the meantime, give Willy a crown, and be sure to warn him well no to get fou with ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... this? Instead of 'showing up' the parsons, are we indulging in maudlin praises of that monstrous black-coated race? O saintly Francis, lying at rest under the turf; O Jimmy, and Johnny, and Willy, friends of my youth! O noble and dear old Elias! how should he who knows you not respect you and your calling? May this pen never write a pennyworth again, if it ever casts ridicule ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "the hated Shaw. Permit me," and he politely grasped the bridle rein. To her amazement he deliberately turned and began to lead her horse, willy nilly, down the road, very much as if she were a child taking her first ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... matter, Willy, dear, but we shall be able to think of a way out of it. You can't go on living like ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... been slim and light-footed, should have to lean on a stick, and be heartily commented upon by street gossips. She was encircled by greasy eyes. Every matron hinted, "Now that you're going to be a mother, dearie, you'll get over all these ideas of yours and settle down." She felt that willy-nilly she was being initiated into the assembly of housekeepers; with the baby for hostage, she would never escape; presently she would be drinking coffee and rocking ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... first half of "Sesame and Lilies," in the lecture "Of Kings' Treasuries," discussing the choice of books, starts vehemently and proceeds at length to denounce the prevalent passion for self-advancement—of rising above one's station in life—quite as if it were the most important thing, willy-nilly, in talking of the choice of books. Which means that, to Ruskin, just then, it was the most formidable obstacle. Can we, at this time of day, do better by simply turning the notion out of doors? Yes, I believe that we ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... died at Belleville, in Upper Canada, was on a visit at my house from abroad. He had occasion to go to Plymouth and Devonport, and I engaged to drive him over in a gig. A petition was made to his mother, that little Willy might accompany us. It was granted, and we put up for the night at the Royal Hotel, at Devonport, where he became quite a lion. The landlady and servants were much taken by their juvenile visitor. The next morning, my brother and I ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... Diamond. If you choose to take the bounty and come voluntarily, you'll be allowed to go ashore whenever your ship's in port. If you don't, and we've got to pinion ye, you will not have your liberty at all. As you must come, willy-nilly, you'll do the first if you've ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... rather cavalierly I thought. Of course, my situation appealed more strongly to me than it was likely to appeal to anybody else. But Captain Rogers did not seem to consider my being carried away, willy-nilly, into the Southern Seas, and on a voyage likely to last anywhere from eighteen months to three years—for the Scarboro was just out of New Bedford, as has been stated—the captain did not seem to consider, I say, what my state of mind might be. Of course, I was thankful that ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... must have left the strongest kind of a mental habit in its wake. Women, when they emerged from the seclusion of their homes and began to mingle in the world procession, when they were thrown on their own financial responsibility, found themselves willy nilly in the ranks of the producers, the wage earners; when the enlightenment of education was no longer denied them, when their responsibilities ceased to be entirely domestic and became somewhat social, when, in a word, women began to think, they naturally thought ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... both the executive and his employee are utterly miserable unless the employee, being a man of judgment, and understanding the situation in its essence, has the good sense either to bring the executive willy-nilly to a complete readjustment of their relations or to resign. Oftentimes, however, the employee has a larger salary than he ever received before—he also feels certain that if he resigns, he cannot secure so large ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... you dear goosey, that was the most chiefest of my reasons, as Willy Shakespeare would say, and I do so long to see them that it seems as though I couldn't wait until to-morrow evening. You said we would be there by this time to-morrow, you remember, Mr. Cuyler, and a promise ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... part in games and dances about which you know nothing. A week-end guest ought to be ignored, allowed to rummage about alone among the books, live stock and cold food in the ice-box whenever he feels like it, and not rushed willy-nilly (something good could be done using the famous Willy-Nilly correspondence as a base, but not here), into whatever the family itself may ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... the same father and mother—that is, Mr. and Mrs. Percy's eldest son had three children, whose names were Mary, and Carry, and Thomas; and one of their daughters was married, and had three children—their names were Willy, and Bella, and Fanny; and their youngest son was married and had one child. Her name was Sarah. She was the youngest of the children, and they all loved her very much, and her Grandma made a ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown
... all things ready. Come, it shall not take you long, we will breakfast when you are shaved and trimmed." So, willy-nilly, she brings me back to the cave and presently comes bearing a gold-mounted box, wherein lay razors with soap and everything needful to a fine gentleman's toilet. Then she sets before me a gold-framed ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol |
