wilfulness

plural wilfulnesses · alternative US willfulness

1. UKuncountableusuallyThe state or condition of being wilful; stubbornness.

   Now Redworth believed in the soul of Diana. For him it burned, and it was a celestial radiance about her, unquenched by her shifting fortunes, her wilfulnesses and, it might be, errors.

   1885, George Meredith, “An Exhibition of Some Champions of the Stricken Lady”, in Diana of the Crossways […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall […], pages 176–177

   2 more examples

   “I want ye all to know,” she said, with a clearing-up snuff, “dat it’s my will an’ pleasure to go right on doin’ my work jes’ de same; an’, Missis, please, I’ll allers put three eggs in de crullers, now; an’ I won’t turn de wash-basin down in de sink, but hang it jam-up on de nail; an’ I won’t pick up chips in a milk-pan, ef I’m in ever so big a hurry;—I’ll do eberyting jes’ as ye tells me. Now you try me an’ see ef I won’t!” / Candace here alluded to some of the little private wilfulnesses which she had always obstinately cherished as reserved rights, in pursuing domestic matters with her mistress.

   1859, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The Practical Test”, in The Minister’s Wooing, New York, N.Y.: Derby and Jackson, […], →OCLC, page 177

   If ever I write again, in the sense of producing artistic work, there are just two subjects on which and through which I desire to express myself: one is “Christ as the precursor of the romantic movement in life”: the other is “The artistic life considered in its relation to conduct.” The first is, of course, intensely fascinating, for I see in Christ not merely the essentials of the supreme romantic type, but all the accidents, the wilfulnesses even, of the romantic temperament also.

   1897 January–March, Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, New York, N.Y.; London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons; The Knickerbocker Press, published 1905, pages 81–82