Literary notes about capriciousness (AI summary)
In literature, capriciousness conveys an inherent unpredictability and whimsical quality that can animate both nature and human behavior. Authors employ the term to capture shifts in mood, memory, and fortune, as when the fickleness of weather is juxtaposed with the erratic nature of recalled images ([1], [2]), or when love and fate are rendered as unstable forces of change ([3], [4]). It is similarly used to reflect the inconsistency of artistic technique and the burst of arbitrary emotion in characterizations, adding layers of nuance to portrayals of both the natural world and the human condition ([5], [6]).
- The wild capriciousness of the weather had brought rain and flashes of untimely lightning flared now and again into momentary whiteness.
— from A Pagan of the Hills by Charles Neville Buck - What was more curious, was the capriciousness with which his portrait seemed to light itself up in my mind, elsewhere.
— from The Uncommercial Traveller by Charles Dickens - The capriciousness of one's memory is extraordinary (at least in the light—or darkness—of one's usual forgetfulness).
— from Forty Years of 'Spy' by Ward, Leslie, Sir - The capriciousness of love is also derived by him from an attachment to some god in a former world.
— from Phaedrus by Plato - The capriciousness of courage is, indeed, so unaccountable, that it has ever been to me a source of amusing reflection.
— from Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 3 (of 3) by Barrington, Jonah, Sir - The capriciousness of the [pg 292] tides of air sympathizes with those of the sea.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville
