"Wan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chance again. I've heard your speeches, and says I, 'There's your wan chance, cully,' and I'm here to grab f'r it. If you've been meanin' the half of what you've been sayin', Mr. Blount—" There was more of it, half pleadings and half mere rageful babblings of a vengeful soul hampered ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... to him with a fascinated gaze; it was as if he expressed things for her and relieved her spirit by making them clear and coherent. Her eyes managed, each time, to be dry again, and now a somewhat wan, ironical smile moved her lips. 'Mamma knows what she wants—she knows what she will take. And she ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... matter over in every mortal way, the old woman and me, Jack, and I'll tell 'ee what we've aboot concluded. On one side thou really wan't t' have us oop ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... very solemn for a song with so cheerful a purpose. We have rarely read, indeed, a book with so large a proportion of unhappy words in it. Frozen shrouds, souls a-chill with agony, things wan and gray, icy demons, scourging willow-branches, snow-heaped mounds, black and freezing nights, cups of sorrow drained to the lees, etc., are presented in such profusion that to struggle through the 'dark abyss' in search of the 'ray of hope' ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... on their quarters and with numbers on their hoofs, With the trampling sound of twenty that re-echoes in the roofs, Low of crest and dull of coat, wan and wild of eye, Through our English village the Canadians ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... pillow. Her face was pinched, it seemed thin, and the brilliancy and size of her eyes were exaggerated. One arm, clumsy and inanimate in splints, was extended over the cotton spread; but with the other hand she was feverishly busy with her appearance. She smiled, a wan tremulous movement that again shut the pain like a leaden ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... as a moonlit night is wont to be, by a magical Presence. A big moth went past her face, so close that she felt the flutter of its wings. A little night beast somewhere was scruttling in bushes or the sand. Suddenly, across the wan grass the shadow of the pine-trunk moved. It moved—ever so little—moved! And, petrified—Gyp stared. There, joined to the trunk, Summerhay was standing, his face just visible against the stem, the moonlight on one cheek, a hand shading his eyes. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a sighte of fulle grete ruthe. Mykelle of that folke therynne Thay weren[O] but verrey bonys and skynne. With eyen holowgh and[P] nose scharpe, Vnnethe thay myght brethe or carpe, For her colowris was[Q] wan as lede, Not like to lyue but sone ben dede. Disfigurid pateronys[R] and quaynte, And as[S] a dede kyng thay weren paynte. There men myght see an[T] exampleyre, How fode makith the pepulle faire.[U] In euery strete summe ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Mr. Dooley, "there's wan thing I wuddent do. I wuddent r-read th' Declaration iv Independence. I'd be ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... went down at last, and the gray day imperceptibly merged into the gray dusk. Then came the lingering darkness, with a flicker of fireflies and broad wan flares of heat lightning. Con woke once in the night to hear the rain on the roof. The wind was blaring near at hand. In its large, free measures, like some deliberate adagio, there was naught of menace; but when he slept again, and awoke to hear its voice ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... though they were twin-sisters. She was dressed in a black velvet gown, precisely like that of the queen in the well-known portrait which belongs to the king; on her head was the pointed velvet coif, which is characteristic of her; and she had the wan complexion, and the features we all know well. I could not help betraying my surprise to his Eminence. The suddenness of the evocation seemed to me all the more amazing because Monsieur de Cagliostro ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... up with a wan smile. Tears were again in her eyes. "Mr. Moore," she said in a broken voice, "what you've told me about Mr. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... Margaret, May Margaret now as then, Then where's that bonny smile of yours That broke the hearts of men? The bonny smile is wan, lad, That once was glad as day— And oh! 'tis weary smiling To keep the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... the desire to be taken seriously; that pale ignorances, presiding over microscopes by which they cannot distinguish flesh from nostoc or fishes' spawn or frogs' spawn, have visited upon us their wan solemnities. We've been damned by corpses and skeletons and mummies, which twitch and totter with ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... dissert somewheres,' he is wont to say, 'I don't rightly remimber where, for my brain's no better than a sive at geagraphy, but it was a wild place, anyhow—bad luck to it! Well, we had sot up a line o' telegraph in it, an' wan the posts was stuck in the ground not far from a pool o' wather where the wild bastes was used to dhrink of a night, an' they tuk a mighty likin' to this post, which they scrubbed an' scraped at till they broke it agin an' agin. Och! it's me heart was broke intirely wi' them. At last I ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... on the battle-field at last His body she had found. She kissed, without a tear or word, The wan ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the morning, a hail shower lying all around, though the sky was a deep sapphire blue, with the wan ghost of the moon lingering on the horizon, and the atmosphere bitter cold. The breakfast was late at the Ewes, owing to Mr. Crawfurd's delicate health, and because Mrs. Crawfurd had her fancies ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... might do with her as I pleased. I observed the door of a small out-house a-jar. I pushed it open; and, with some hay strewed about, I formed a couch for her, placing her exhausted frame on it, and covering her with my cloak. I feared to leave her, she looked so wan and faint—but in a moment she re-acquired animation, and, with that, fear; and again she implored me not to delay. To call up the people of the inn, and obtain a conveyance and horses, even though I harnessed them myself, was the work of many minutes; minutes, each freighted with the weight ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... anxious now. She wore a white dress, simple with the simplicity of supreme and expensive art. A rope of pearls was her only ornament. Her hair was somewhat elaborately coiffured, there was a touch of rouge upon her cheeks, and the unscreened evening sunlight was scarcely kind to her rather wan features and carefully arranged complexion. She still had her claims to beauty, however. Tallente admitted that to himself as he stood there appraising her, with a strange and almost impersonal regard,—his wife of thirteen years. She was beautiful, notwithstanding ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... comin' to bed?" and upon receiving no answer he rolled his aching body into the creaking bed. "Do as ye damn please about it. If ye wan' to sulk y' can." And in such wise the family grew quiet in sleep, while the moist, warm air pulsed with the ceaseless ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... slepen so that no man may yow wake. Who sey ever or this so dul a man?" "Ye, freend," quod he, "do ye your hedes ake For love, and lat me liven as I can." 550 But though that he for wo was pale and wan, Yet made he tho as freshe a countenaunce As though he shulde have led the ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... silhouettes; The sun in universal carnage sets, And, halting higher, The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, That, balked, yet stands at bay. Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline, A wan Valkyrie whose wide pinions shine Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray, And in her hand swings high o'erhead, Above the waste of war, The silver torch-light of the evening star Wherewith to search ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... never saw him but he was swaying, or standing with his hand before his eyes, or clutching on to the edge of a chair, or walking with feeble footsteps; and she never spoke to him but he replied with a tired, wan smile, until she became seriously alarmed, thinking his brain was affected, and consulted ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... their hair with lines which looked like snow. The first man, who was the chief mate, walked leaning heavily on the arm of the kindly-hearted harbour-master, Captain Braine. The second man, whose collar-bone was broken, moved as one might suppose a galvanised corpse would. A third man's wan face wore a forced smile, which only seemed to light up the piteous, underlying expression of the features. They were all saturated with brine; they were soaked with sea-water to the very marrow of the bones. Shivering, and with a stupefied rolling of the eyes, ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... as he went Forgot the minstrel's song; But the blessing that his wan lips sent Will guard the minstrel long; And keep his spirit innocent, And turn his hand ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... perforce returns to couthless youth, wan, white and cold, Lisping again his broken words till all the ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... began to shorten, Hulda's cheeks lost their bright color, and her steps their merry lightness; she became pale and wan. Her parents were grieved to see her change so fast, but they hoped, as the weary winter came on, that the cheerful fire and gay company would revive her; but she grew worse and worse, till she could scarcely walk alone through ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... away and far away, Heard a voice but knew it not in the clear cold, Many a wide circle and many a wan star away, Dwelling in the chambers where the worlds ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... total, lasts about an hour. During all this time the black lunar disc may be watched making its way steadily across the solar face. Notwithstanding the gradual obscuration of the sun, one does not notice much diminution of light until about three-quarters of his disc are covered. Then a wan, unearthly appearance begins to pervade all things, the temperature falls noticeably, and nature seems to halt in expectation of the coming of something unusual. The decreasing portion of sun becomes more and more narrow, until at length it is reduced to a ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... especial desire it had been taken, had been very fond of it, and had always kept it in her room, and Fred was very anxious to see it again. After a long search, with Bennet's help, Henrietta found it, and brought it to him. Thin, wan, and in the deep black garments, there was much more general resemblance to her present appearance in this than in the portrait of the beautiful smiling bride. "And yet," said Fred, as he compared them, "do not you think, Henrietta, ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... clung to his arm with a tragic forlornness that seemed to leave her very wan and helpless. And he had found it ineffably sweet to enfold that warm mass of wan helplessness in ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... wan fond Lover? Prithee, prithee, Prithee why so pale: Will, when looking well can't move her, Looking Ill, looking ill prevail? Why so dull and mute young Sinner? Prithee, prithee why so mute; Will, when speaking ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... in the schoolhouse at Wrayth, where the buxom girl who had been assistant mistress, and had married, a year before, brought her first-born son to show the lord and lady—as he had been born on their wedding day, just a fortnight ago! She was pale and wan, but so ecstatically proud and happy looking; and Tristram at once said, they—he and Zara—must be the god-parents of her boy; and Zara held the crimson, crumpled atom for a moment, and then looked up and met her husband's eyes, and saw that they had filled with tears. And she returned ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... restraint. She was about to leave the table in order to relieve them of her presence, when Miss Burton unexpectedly entered and took her chair, which hitherto had been vacant. She was a little pale and wan, but this only made her look the more interesting, and both Stanton and Van Berg welcomed her as they would the sunshine after a dreary storm. Even Mrs. Mayhew seemed to find a wonderful relief in her coming, and added ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... finished the measures, and some few other daunces, the said page waved them forth with his wan, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... wish to be convinced of the absurdity of endeavouring to thwart nature's laws, plant a tuft of grass, or a cabbage-plant, in the darkest corner of your coal-cellar. The plant or the tuft may increase in length and breadth, but its colour will be as wan and pale, almost, as would be your own face ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... Hubbard Went to the Cupboard To get her poor dog a bone; When she got there The Cupboard wan bare. And so the poor ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its summer of shade and flower and murmuring stream; its autumn with the laden boughs, when the withered banners of the corn are still, and gathered fields are growing strangely wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color what they touch, weaves in the Autumn wood her tapestries ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... to receive him in, when his aged steps should bring him there at last. He is filled with joy to see her, so young—so bright—so full of promise—and is enraptured to think that she never was old, wan, tearful, withered. This is always one of the sources of consolation in the deaths of children. With no effort of the fancy, with nothing to undo, you will always be able to think of the pretty creature you have lost, ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... yellow, to turn back as the monuments met their crests, and then to roll upward, blotting out the stars. It was such a light as he had never seen, except in dreams. Pale moonlight and dimmed starlight and wan dawn all vague and strange and shadowy under the wild and vivid light ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... hear it from himself soon. I shall only spare her some unnecessary pain; it is cruel to see her thus, and to keep her in suspense. Besides, her weakness might be her ruin, in his opinion, if it were to extinguish all her energy, and deprive her of the very power of pleasing. How wan she looks, and how heavy are those sleepless eyes! She is not, indeed, in a condition to meet him, when he comes to us to-morrow: if she had some hopes, she would revive and appear with ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... and then I saw Ruth. She moved in her chair as if weary. A servant entered bearing a light, and then I saw her face. It was wonderfully changed. It was not that she looked older, but that she was so weary and wan. The old joyous light was gone from her eyes, and she was ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... many months have elapsed; alone and mournfully I live, like a hermit, in these walls, abhorred by the world, an abomination even to brutes. Beautiful nature is shut out from me; for I am blind by day, and only when the moon sheds her wan light upon this ruin, falls the ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... winding-sheet enfold; Count the mystic count of seven: Name the Governors of Heaven.[2] Then in earthen vessel place them, And with dragon-wort encase them, Bleach them in the noonday sun, Till the marrow melt and run, Till the flesh is pale and wan, As a moon-ensilvered cloud, As an unpolluted shroud. Next within their chill embrace The dead man's Awful Candle place; Of murderer's fat must that candle be —You may scoop it beneath the roadside tree—, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... cheerfulness," answered the other, a shade of sadness coming into his face, "methinks the merry smile hath forever forsaken her lips, for now she looketh so pale and wan it doth seem but the shadow of her former self wandering about the house; but thank God, the worst is over, and she is ...
— The Fifth of November - A Romance of the Stuarts • Charles S. Bentley
... de winder An' kip jus' so quiet lak wan leetle mouse, She say de more finer moon never was shiner— Very fonny, for moon isn't dat side ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... sergeant knew for whom those supplies were meant, others did not, and of these latter one jocular and untutored Patlander sang out, "Bully for the leftenint; 'tis he that knows how to look out for number wan." Whereat there came furious shouts of "Shame!" "Shut up!" and inelegant and opprobrious epithets, all at the expense of the impetuous son of Erin who had spoken too soon. Some one whacked his empty head with an equally empty canteen and called him a Yap. Some one else, farther back, sang out, ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... pralaya is skipped, and you stand on the far shore, in the sunset of an elder day: looking now forward, into futurity, from 390, perhaps 394 B.C.; over first a half-cycle of Persian decline,—long melancholy sands and shingle, to—there on the edge of the great wan water,—that July in 330 when mean Satrap Bessus killed his king, Codomannus, last of the Achaemenidae, then in flight from Alexander;—and the House of Cyrus and Darius came to an end. What a time it was that drifted into Limbo then! One unit of history; one phase ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... willingly to roam, Lured by a traitor's vainly-trusted vow? Could they, the fond and happy, see me now, Who knew me when life's early summer smiled, They would not know 'twas I, or marvel how The laughing thing, half woman and half child, Could e'er be changed to form so squalid, wan, and wild. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... cald me yer own Susan—in clare county More betoken—iv bin onaisy about ye yer so bowld an Rekles, but this is wurst ov all. Iv no noshun o them sandlewood skooners. The Haf ov thems pirits an The other hafs no beter. Whats wus is that my owld master was drownded in wan, or out o wan, but shure its All the Saim. Down he wint an that ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... including Mde-wa-kan-ton-wan ("Spirit Lake village") and Wa-qpe-ku-te ("Shoot among deciduous trees"), mostly located in Knox county, Nebraska, on the former Santee reservation, with some oa Fort Peck reservation, Montana. B. Sisseton ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... very white and listless, leaning against the side of a doorway, smoking, and looking into the ballroom. Edith could see that his face was thin and wan—that the hand he raised to his lips with a cigarette, was trembling. They were dancing quite ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... one or two exceptions, they had sound limbs, clear eyes, and healthy complexions. As for the young girls, many of them were exceptionally pretty; and the children were sturdy youngsters, not the wan, thin-legged little creatures one sees in Paris. In fact, all of these people appeared to belong to a different race from that of the Parisians, to come from ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... a great wan-hope at his departure, and grieved continually, neither would be comforted; for she said, "I have brought this on myself by sending him such perilous journeys heretofore, and now I cannot bear to part from him." But that she ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... loved you, John; No fault of mine made me your toast: Why will you haunt me with a face as wan ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... Jack took into his strong arms, and would have carried ashore had he been allowed his own way. But this was a point beyond even his power to enforce. For one thing they were sure the child was dead, the little face looked so wan. Secondly, if they were caught by the English gunboat it would mean heavy fines, and the men had no notion of throwing away good ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... His gravity was mix'd with gentleness, Nor had his age made his good humour less; Then was he well in years (the same that he Was Consul that of my nativity), 90 (A stripling then), in his fourth consulate On him at Capua I in arms did wait. I five years after at Tarentum wan The quaestorship, and then our love began; And four years after, when I praetor was, He pleaded, and the Cincian law[4] did pass. With useful diligence he used t'engage, Yet with the temperate arts of patient age He breaks fierce Hannibal's insulting heats; ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... longing, The widow curbed and wan— The good wife proud at season, And the maid aware of man; All souls, unslaked, consuming, Defrauded in delays, Desire not more than quittance Than I ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... the church, he turns from the spot whence he has anxiously watched the different members of the departing throng, and feebly crouches down on his knees at the base of a pillar that is near him. His eyes are hollow, and his cheeks are wan; his thin grey hairs are few and fading on his aged head. He makes no effort to follow the crowd and partake their sustenance; no one is left behind to urge, no one returns to lead him to the public meal. Though weak and old, he is perfectly forsaken in his loneliness, perfectly unsolaced ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the green umbrella struck a Casey-at-the-bat pose and cut in: "G'wan away from me with your dime-novel talk or I'll place the back of me ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... presentiment forbade me to look in her face. And then when at length I did look at her, I could not tear myself away from such a sorrowful object of contemplation. She was no longer the little pink and white child I had seen in the Champs-Elysees; she had grown taller and thinner, and her face was wan as a waxen taper. Her languid eyes were encircled with blue rings. And her temples . . . what invisible hand had laid those two ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... glory and brightness as seldom comes to human eyes. It was a vision of angels and of brilliant stars. She commenced calling her father, and those with him, and began talking about the radiant forms that hovered over her. Her wan, pale face was illumined with smiles, and with an ecstasy of joy she talked of the angels and stars, and of the happiness she experienced. "Why, Reed," exclaimed McCutchen, "Patty is dying!" And it was ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing and cheering, Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate seashore. Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with her father, And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man, Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought or emotion, E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been taken. Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to cheer him, Vainly offered him food; yet he moved not, he looked ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the Queen's manner toward me became more distant every day; thanks to Lady Morley-Frere, Mary Darragh, and the other busybodies who had the royal ear, and hated me. If I coquetted with the King 'twas but to see my heart's real master frown, and his face grow wan and sad, for by those very tokens I ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... passed the plains, the place of the sleepless winds where wan white skies bent above the grass of the hot dry pulse, the lifeless grass that wailed into the ceaseless wind its ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... not badly hurt. She went forward with Mr. and Mrs. Bolton, and after they had both taken the limp hand that lay outside the covering, she touched it too. It returned no pressure, but his large, wan eyes looked at her with such gentle dignity and intelligence that she began to frame in her mind an excuse for what seemed ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... blowing so hard, high up there in the exposed place, that the only way to be safe was to stand nailed by the wind to the wan of the tower. At their feet fell the precipice where the limestone was quarried away. Below was a jumble of hills and tiny villages—Mattock, Ambergate, Stoney Middleton. The lads were eager to spy out the church of Bestwood, far away among the ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... "G'wan, ain't it enough to get the club named for you?" came the angry retort. "What you know about ...
— Eve to the Rescue • Ethel Hueston
... simplicity, was going on without being noticed. Micheline had thrown herself with a burst of tenderness into her mother's arms. Serge was deeply affected by the young girl's affection for him, when a trembling hand touched his arm. He turned round. Jeanne de Cernay was before him, pale and wan; her eyes sunken into her head like two black nails, and her lips tightened by a violent contraction. The Prince stood thunderstruck at the sight of her. He looked around him. Nobody was observing him. Pierre was beside Marechal, who was whispering those words ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... neighbor before mentioned—Mrs. Quinn, long time laundress of Captain Sanders's troop and jealous as to Wren's, was telling what she had heard of Shannon's discoveries, opining that both Captain Wren and the captain's daughter deserved investigation. "No wan need tell me there was others prowling about Mullins's post at three in the marnin.' As for Angela—" But here Miss Shaughnessy bounded from the wooden settee, and, with amazing vim and vigor, sailed spontaneously ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... southern side of the house. Her paling beams streamed through the nearer windows, and lay in long strips of slanting light on the marble pavement of the Hall. The black shadows of the pediments between each window, alternating with the strips of light, heightened the wan glare of the moonshine on the floor. Toward its lower end, the Hall melted mysteriously into darkness. The ceiling was lost to view; the yawning fire-place, the overhanging mantel-piece, the long row of battle pictures above, were all swallowed up in night. But one visible object was discernible, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... Thy strength and bloom are faded: Who hath thus Thy state degraded? Death upon Thy form is written; See the wan worn limbs, the smitten Breast upon ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... dear, to keep me company," she answered with a wan smile. "People like me always have to be a good deal alone, anyway. I shall be, of course, lonelier, now that I have no one to play with," and the smile vanished from her lips. She flung up her face towards the skies, letting her grief have its way ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... been heard by those who were huddled around the miserable fire, for they scrambled to their knees. As the tiny blaze sprang up just then, it showed the scouts the four Stanhope boys looking pinched and wan, with their eyes staring the wonder they must have felt at sight ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren
... poet Marvell. But with some peoples the task of answering the question is an easy one; for fate, or its human side, caste, has settled the matter long before the infant comes into the world. The Chinese philosopher, Han Wan-Kung, is cited by Legge as saying: "When Shuh-yu was born, his mother knew, as soon as she looked at him, that he would fall a victim to his love of bribes. When Yang sze-go was born, the mother of Shuh-he-ang knew, as soon ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... "Ah, g'wan!" reiterated Frenchy. "You won't get into the brig for it, that's sure. I'll do it alone. Only see that you keep your mouth shut about it, if ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... ye don't," concluded an Irishman, "I take it ye'll die, an' take sam wan of us wid ye; fur this is an American ship, where the mates are hired fur the bigness o' their fists an' the hardness o' their hearts. Look pleasant, now, the pair o' ye; an' wan o' ye take this hash-kid ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... to git right back in thar, an' keep still. It was just as that whole caboodle come tearin' up this las' time, sir. It wan't no safe place fer a girl whar you was. Ragan he promised to tell you, only he got hit 'fore the fracas was done. That's why Foster chirked up, an' that's all ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... want to part with his niggers an the niggers didn' wan' to part with ol' master so they thought by comin to Arkansas they would have a chance to keep 'em. So they got on their way. We loaded up our wagons an put up our wagon sheet an we had plenty to eat an plenty of horse feed. We traveled ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... men's artificial arrangements, to, the recognition of a certain potent natural aristocracy, which is far from being always identical with that more formal, heraldic one. And what is a coarse fact in the case of Faulconbridge becomes a motive of pathetic appeal in the wan and babyish Arthur. The magic with which nature models tiny and delicate children to the likeness of their rough fathers is nowhere more justly expressed than in the ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... full of energy, Laura tore her Minerva from top to bottom, while two great tears rolled down the cheeks grown wan with hope deferred. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... for his kindness. Now, the Secretary had lived in modern capitals for many years, was trained in diplomacy, and had schooled himself never to appear surprised. But the Princess Kalora fairly bowled him over. He had pictured her as a wan and waxen creature, who would be carried to the hotel in a closed carriage or ambulance, there to recline by the windowside and look out at the rustling leaves. He had decided, after hours of deliberation, that the etiquette of the situation would be for some member ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... wine of which they drank A drug infused, antidote to the pains Of grief and anger, a most potent charm For ills of ev'ry name. Whoe'er his wine So medicated drinks, he shall not pour 280 All day the tears down his wan cheek, although His father and his mother both were dead, Nor even though his brother or his son Had fall'n in battle, and before his eyes. Such drugs Jove's daughter own'd, with skill prepar'd, And of prime virtue, by the wife of Thone, AEgyptian Polydamna, giv'n her. For ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... and seeing, with the exception of the copse just passed, nothing but an open forest, without shelter or harbour for an ambushed foe. But at that moment Edith caught him by the arm, and turned upon him a countenance more wan with fear than that she had exhibited upon first hearing the cries of Stackpole. It expressed, indeed, more than alarm,—it was the highest degree of terror, and the feeling was so overpowering that her lips, though moving as in the act of speech, gave forth no sound whatever. But what ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... you say that, mother dear; sweet to know that you love me so," Evelyn said in moved tones, bending down to press a kiss on the wan cheek, "and I mean to fairly surfeit you with my company in the days and ...
— Elsie at Home • Martha Finley
... that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the bright celestial spheres, False lights, false shadows, vague, uncertain gleams, Pale vaporous mists, wan streaks of lurid flame, The climbing of the upward-sailing cloud, The sinking of the downward-falling star, All these are pictures of the changing moods Borne through the midnight stillness ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... olive; and the small fountains, which, in any other land, would spring merrily along, sparkling and singing among tinkling pebbles, here flow calmly and silently into some pale font of marble, all beautiful with life; worked by some unknown hand, long ago nerveless, and fall and pass on among wan flowers, and scented copse, through cool leaf-lighted caves or gray Egerian grottoes, to join the Tiber or Eridanus, to swell the waves of Nemi, or the Larian Lake. The most minute objects (leaf, flower, and stone), while they add ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... river. Tall grass twisted about the Terran's legs as he began to run. In spite of the gloom, he hesitated to cross that open space. At night Warlock's peculiar vegetation displayed a very alien attribute—ten ... twenty varieties of grass, plant, and tree emitted a wan phosphorescence, varying in degree, but affording each an aura of light. And the path before Shann now was dotted by splotches of that radiance, not as brilliant as the chemical-born flames the attackers had kindled ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... is at your service, my son. But,' he added, with a wan smile, 'my Lenten fare is always somewhat meagre, and this year it has been such that I must ask you for a crust of bread if I am to have the strength to ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of Saint Malo, hired by the young Sheridan and some other Irish adherents, arrived in Lochnannach; and on the twentieth day of September, this unfortunate prince embarked in the habit which he wore for disguise. His eye was hollow, his visage wan, and his constitution greatly impaired by famine and fatigue. He was accompanied by Cameron of Lochiel and his brother, with a few other exiles. They set sail for France, and after having passed unseen, by means of a ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... works by the older masters the source of light is conceived within the picture, so by its issuance from the inward of the wing, the valuable principle of radiation has resulted, the light passing upward through the wan face behind to the crescent moon and below through the sleeve and long fold of the dress to the ground. On the side it follows the arm disappearing through the fingers ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... lakes and meadows, haunting oft the wonted shore,— Hunters from the land of spirits seek the bison and the deer, Where the Saxon now inherits golden field and silver mere; And beside the mound where burried lies the dark-eyed maid he loves, Some tall warrior, wan and wearied, in the misty moonlight moves. See—he stands erect and lingers—stoic still, but loth to go— Clutching in his tawny fingers feathered shaft and polished bow. Never wail or moan he utters ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... a frightful picture of the misery of the workers. Men, women, children, young girls, pass before you, starved, blanched, ragged, wan, and wild. The description ends with ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Alberich's dwelling,—a frowning fortress of granite built in the mountain-side. The gate was opened by the sleepy giant who always sat within, and the party rode into the narrow court-yard. There they were met by Alberich, seeming smaller and grayer, and more pinched and wan, than ever before. ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... though not Atheists in principle, yet such in practice.[21] What do all their acts declare, but this, that they either know not God, or fear not what he can do unto them? But, O! how will they change their note, when they see what will become of them! How wan will they look! Yea, the hair of their heads will stand on end for fear; for their fear is their portion; nor can their fears, nor their prayers, nor their entreaties, nor their wishes, nor their repentings, help them in this day. And thus have I showed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... so wan with care,' we begin to wish that we had never undertaken the publication of these letters. Between two impending law-suits how shall we muster courage to keep on the even tenor of our way? Even our staunch ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... gaed, And raised the slogan ane and a', And cut a hole through a sheet of lead, And so we wan ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the Trojan women, weeping, Sit ranged in many a length'ning row; Their heedless locks, dishevelled, sweeping Adown the wan cheeks worn with woe. No festive sounds that peal along, Their mournful dirge can overwhelm; Through hymns of joy one sorrowing song, Commingled, wails the ruined realm. "Farewell, beloved shores!" it said: "From home afar behold us torn, By foreign lords as captives borne— Ah, happy ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... blood and fire, over heaps of slain, General Sir Redvers Duller passed into Ladysmith—passed in just in time; passed in to see men with wan cheeks and sunken eyes—an army of skeletons; but passed in to find the ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... into the charming dream. Bent and weary, he came across the lawn to find his son. The wan, pathetic figure brought back to James all the present bitterness. He sighed, and advanced ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... eyes widened, and a look of mingled confusion and astonishment came into his wan face. "I do not see, tio mio—I ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends:— such a man may be reckoned a COMPLETE man.' CHAP. XIV. 1. The Master asked Kung-ming Chia about Kung-shu Wan, saying, 'Is it true that your master speaks not, laughs not, and takes not?' 2. Kung-ming Chia replied, 'This has arisen from the reporters going beyond the truth.— My master speaks when it is the time to speak, and so men do not get tired of his speaking. He laughs when there ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... the sting from the sorrow he inflicted by making her believe it inevitable. Thus this little wellspring of romance forever watered and kept fresh her otherwise withered life; if subdued, she was not bitter; and no one can tell how the thin, wan face renewed its youth, and the wrinkled cheeks their pinkish bloom, caught in that far-off spring-time in her father's orchards, as, sitting in her solitary room, she remembered the man, now occupying a prominent position in life, who said, as he bade her tenderly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... its ghastly noon, Pauses above the death-still wood—the moon; The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres! Haggard as spectres—vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow, Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave closes on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... young wife whom he had lost. I repeated—fervently and sincerely repeated—what I had already said to him in writing. "I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly kindness." Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his wan white hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, and respectfully put ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... and scarce, on a bare brick floor, with a grate in which no fire could have been kindled without falling into the middle of the room. He recalls that racking head-ache, that scorching thirst, and those pains in all the bones of a wan, wasted figure lying under a patchwork quilt on a squalid bed. A figure, independent of, and dissevered from himself, yet in some degree identified with his thoughts, his sufferings, and his memories. Somebody nursed the figure, too—he ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... moves over to the next table again to help out with the silver bucket of champagne he's ordered, taking Jeff Tuttle with him to present to his old friends that he's known for all of twenty minutes. The New Yorker is now more suspicious then ever of Ben; his wan beauty is marred by a cynical smile and his hair has come unglued in a couple of places. Ben is more sensitive than ever to these suspicions of his new pal so he calls on Jake Berger to match his watch against the four. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... shriek of war, face to face with death, she sought to save him. It was another woman who stood opposite the yielding, cracking door, past whose head a half-spent bullet spat its way, burying itself in the wall behind her,—another woman, disheveled, forgetful of her wan beauty, trusting to no power but that which her heart gave her to face the man she had betrayed and ruined. Yet both in an instantaneous flash remembered that first meeting. The drawn sword sank, point downward. He stood motionless in the shattered doorway, holding out ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... overwhelming extent. On the other hand, when, as he generally did, he called Mike 'Mister Cricketer', the humour of the thing appeared to elude Mike, though the mode of address always drew from Psmith a pale, wan smile, as of a broken heart made cheerful against ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... her breast. The hand of the woman was stretched out with a coin which she was about dropping into an iron-bound coffer which stood at the side of the picture. It was "the widow's mite;" and her face, wan, sad, sweet, yet loving and longing, told the story. The two coins were going into the box ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Wan water from the border hills, Dear voice from the old years, Thy distant music lulls and stills, And ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... face looked wan and sad and it seemed to the Motor Maids that Miss Campbell might not have been so severe; but as a housekeeper, that small, gentle lady was ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... suddenly above "the night wind's melancholy song" he heard a voice calling him through the twilight. "Qu'appelle? Qu'appelle?" he answered in French. "Who calls?" But only his own voice came back in echoes while the gloom of night deepened and a wan moon rose silently behind the distant hill. Then when he reached the Indian encampment it was only to see the death fires lighted on the shore, to hear the wail of women and to learn that just before her lips had closed forever, his beloved had called for him—just ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... backer near him, and it was commonly with a feeling as of a bare escape of my life that I finally got into the house. It was sad enough, too, often to find sickness and death in those fever-stricken abodes—a wan mother nursing one dying child, with perhaps another dead in the house. My business, too, was not the most welcome. I came to dun a delinquent debtor, who had perhaps been inveigled by some peddler of our goods into an imprudent purchase, for a payment which ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... from him," said Lorelei, with a wan smile, "and I'll know that you are in good company for one evening ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... herself on the foot of the bed. "I've just had the very sweetest note from Hunt-Goring accompanied by a box of the most exquisite Eastern cigarettes—'Companions of the Harem,' he says they are called. And how are you feeling now, you poor wan thing? What interesting shadows you have developed! I wish I could make my eyes look like that. The revered Max suffered agonies about you last night, and nearly slew me with a glance because I dared to touch my mandolin after dinner. Poor little Nick was rather blue too though he did ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... yesterday," he said, trying to force a smile, but it was a sickly effort, and only made more ghastly and wan his pallid features, over which ages seemed to have passed since the previous day, leaving them scarred, and battered, ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... has tane a siller wan', An' gi'en him strokes three, And he has started up the bravest knight That ever ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... 'twould have made a preacher peevish to have you land in the pit of his stummick with them sharp hoofs of yourn. But you're only an innercent little sheep, and they wan't no sense in his tryin' to ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... months afterwards seemed doubtful, there were only broken revelations of the laborious hours renewed, and the white nights when he had seen the moonlight fade and the gaslight grow wan at the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... of many Asiatic races, including not only the volunteers from the native states of India, but elements from the French colony in Cochin China, with Annam, Cambodia, Tonkin, Laos, and Kwang Chau Wan. England and France both contributed many African tribes, including Arabs from Algeria and Tunis, Senegalese, Saharans, and many of the South African races. The red races of North America were represented in the armies of both Canada and the United States, while the Maoris, Samoans, and other ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... before a breeze sprang up and dispelled the ominous fog. The moon showed her wan face through the driving scud, the sail was at last hoisted, and cold and hungry, and sick at heart, our voyagers once more returned to their ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... a praying angel and an evil dwarf on either side. The black abyss attracts her yet she is softened by a child's caress. She laughs at the blackest calamities that threaten her, but weeps over thin, wan children without bread. Her whole life goes into song. The boy criminal on the street fascinates her and she would kiss him. She writes of jealousy as a ghost of vengeance. If death comes, she fears "that the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... weapon tie: Then the gay glittering diadem put on, Ponderous with brass, and starr'd with Bristol-stone. His royal consort next consults her glass, 50 And out of twenty boxes culls a face; The whitening first her ghastly looks besmears, All pale and wan the unfinish'd form appears; Till on her cheeks the blushing purple glows, And a false virgin-modesty bestows. Her ruddy lips the deep vermilion dyes; Length to her brows the pencil's arts supplies, And with black ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... His senses, nevertheless, were alert. He heard the low roar of the flooded brook, the whir of rising grouse ahead, the hoofs of deer on stones, the song of spring birds. He had an eye also for the wan wild flowers in the shaded corners. Presently he led the horse out of the willows into the open and up a low-swelling, long slope of fragrant sage. Here he dropped back to Columbine's side and put his hand upon the pommel of her saddle. It was not long until her own hand softly fell ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... which contained "dangerous praises of his valor and worthiness," inserted for the express purpose of exciting the jealousy of the queen and bringing him into disgrace. The work was shown him by Elizabeth herself. On coming from her presence he was observed to look "pale and wan," and going home he reported himself sick;—an expedient for working on the feelings of his sovereign, to which, notwithstanding the truth and honor popularly regarded as his characteristics, Essex is known to have frequently condescended. On this, as on most occasions, he found it successful: ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the mirror by their side, looked at her wan face, the shabby little hat, the none too tidily arranged hair which drooped over her ears; down at her shapeless jacket, her patched skirt, the shoes which were in open rebellion. Then she laughed, curiously enough ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... fading of innumerable plants. Then the larches begin to put on sallow tints that deepen into orange, burning against the solid blue sky like amber. The frosts are severe at night, and the meadow grass turns dry and wan. The last lilac crocuses die upon the fields. Icicles, hanging from watercourse or mill-wheel, glitter in the noonday sunlight. The wind blows keenly from the north, and now the snow begins to fall and thaw and freeze, and fall and thaw again. The ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... are all past over Of our dreaming, dreams that hover In a mist of fair false things: Night's afloat on wide wan wings." ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... me wan an' nine, fork it oot,' she answered brusquely, and held out her brawny hand, into which Abel Graham reluctantly, as usual, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... pale Cynthia fades, The bursting earth unveils the shades! All slow, and wan, and wrapped with shrouds They rise in visionary crowds, And all with sober accent cry, 'Think, mortal, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Julianne. Aunt Julianne used ter have spells and fight and kick all the time. They had doctor after doctor but none did her any good. Somebody told Uncle Martin to go ter a old conjurer and let the doctors go cause they wan't doing nothing for her anyway. Sho nuff he got one ter come see her and give her some medicine. This old man said she had bugs in her head, and after giving her the medicine he started rubbing her head. While he rubbed her head he said: ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... viands, and accustomed to find every whim fulfilled, this kind of life was intolerable to him. The steaming recesses of a squalid eating-house gave him a sensation of loathing and sickness, and the want of exercise made him look haggard and wan. In vain he appealed to men who had called themselves his father's friends; he found to his cost that the son of a detected swindler has no friends, and more especially if his own life have been tainted with suspicion or dishonour. Poor ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... grew to be nearly five years old. He was a pretty little fellow; though there was something wan and wistful in his small face, that gave occasion to many significant shakes of Mrs Wickam's head, and many long-drawn inspirations of Mrs Wickam's breath. His temper gave abundant promise of being imperious in after-life; and he had as hopeful an apprehension ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in the Cascine at six o'clock of a foggy morning; the light bad, the ground heavy from a night's rain. The marchese wore black, I remember, and looked horrible; a wan, doomed face, a mouth drawn down at one corner, a slavered, untidy red beard; and those wide fish-eyes of his which seemed to see nothing. Count Giraldi bore himself gallantly, as he always did. ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... through the wire induces currents in the water, and these moving in the opposite direction act as a drag on the passage of the message through the wire. What the effect of this phenomenon would be on a cable long enough to cross the Atlantic wan a serious problem that required deep study by the company's engineers. It seemed entirely possible that the messages would move so slowly that the operation of the cable, once it was laid, ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers |
