"Wistful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... illustration of the Architectural Antiquities of England, could scarcely do otherwise than often cast a wistful look towards the opposite shores of Normandy; and such would particularly be the case, if, like Mr. Cotman, to a strong attachment to his profession and the subject, he should chance to add a residence ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... with power to comfort her—he would have given his life for that—and turned away with a great, yearning pain snatching at his breath. In the hall he paused a moment, trying to think. A light step, a frail hand on his arm, a wistful face lifted ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... owner, as they looked as though he had used them for scoops to remove soot from a choked chimney. Also the demarcation lines of various high tides were plainly visible on his wrists and well up his arms. He arose with a wistful look at the platter of ham which had started on its first and perhaps only lap ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... the darkness, Miss Pritchard shook her head sadly. She said to herself this couldn't go on—this state of things couldn't continue. Despite Elsie's elation over the fact that she was booked for another week at the theatre, she looked more mournful and wistful and worn than ever. Some strain was wearing the child out. It wasn't the work, nor yet the excitement, for she lived on them, and not altogether unhealthily. There was no other possible explanation: it was nothing less than the strain of combating her own disapproval, tacit or expressed. Elsie was ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... heart of wistful Jocko Still was with his ancient flame In the nutgroves of Morocco; Or if not it's ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... means. Shirley is all right. If her wistful cast of physiognomy is not gone, no more is her careless smile. She keeps her dark old manor-house light and bright with her cheery presence. The gallery and the low-ceiled chambers that open into it have ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... in his wistful face, "we have seen more troubled waters than these, far, and in a much frailer vessel. Do you not remember the Wallenstadt and its miserable skiff? where I have heard you say there was really danger, though we escaped from it all ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... dreams passed. Dawn lifted the ebony gloom out of the canyon and sunlight far up on the ramparts renewed Shefford's spirit. He rose and awoke the others. Fay's wistful smile still held its faith. They ate of the gritty, water-soaked food. Then they embarked. The current carried them swiftly down and out of hearing of the last rapid. The character of the river and the canyon changed. The current ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... for Pen's kit, and filled trunks with his books and linen. Helen wrote cards with the name of Arthur Pendennis, Esq., which were duly nailed on the boxes; and at which both she and Laura looked with tearful wistful eyes. It was not until long, long after he was gone, that Pen remembered how constant and tender the affection of these women had been, and how ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... greatest spell in life. Nora Miall had provoked his curiosity, had reawakened a dormant sense of sex without attracting it towards herself. Jane brought to him again, from the first moment he had seen her, that half-wistful recrudescence of the sentiment of his earlier days. He was amazed to find how once more in her presence that sentiment had taken to itself fire and life, how different a thing it was from those first dreams of her, which had seemed like an echo from the period of his poetry-reading ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... heavenwards, by presenting the examples of those who had died in the Lord,—as of God's Son himself, and Stephen, and the Thief on the Cross,—till, under such discoursing, we approached the Castle. Here, after long wistful looking about, he did get sight of his beloved Jonathan," Royal Highness the Crown-Prince, "at a window in the Castle; from whom he, with the politest and most tender expression, spoken in French, took leave, ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... 'Roundabout Paper' No. 23, 'De Finibus,' in which a sense of the ebb of life is very marked; the whole paper is like a soliloquy. It opens with a drawing of Mr. Punch, with unusually mild eye, retiring for the night; he is putting out his high-heeled shoes, and before disappearing gives a wistful look into the passage, as if bidding it and all else good-night. He will be in bed, his candle out, and in darkness, in five minutes, and his shoes found next morning at his door, the little potentate all the while in his final ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... oh, in that pathetic gaze What crowded memories dwell! What wistful dreams of briny days Beneath the surging swell, Ere fate had seized this little fish And plumped ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... land to traverse alone. It is too wistful and stricken; too deficient in those externals that conduce to comfort. Its charms do not appeal to the eye of romance, and the man who would perambulate Magna Graecia as he does the Alps would soon regret his choice. ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... was roused that same desire which had prompted De Courtenay to snatch the bloom from the stockade wall,—a longing to give her something, to offer homage to this tall young woman with the wondrous face of beauty and wistful strength. Since she was but a child had men who looked upon her felt this same longing, this stirring of the worshipper within. But few had dared the wall of quietness about her; therefore, she had remained apart. Only Prix Laroux of all those ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... with anxiety. Ivory's attention was attracted by the wistful eyes and the beauty of the forehead under the dark hair. He seemed something more than the child of yesterday—a care and responsibility and expense, for all his loving obedience; he seemed all at once different to-night; older, more dependable, ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... bright thing in her life that belonged wholly to herself, and plodded patiently on. The tears that she shed in secret were never allowed to trouble her family, and gradually the pain had grown into a great calm. No one ever came her way to touch her heart again. Only little children brought the wistful look to her eyes, and a wonder whether people had it made up to them in heaven when they had failed of the ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... I won't turn into a monkey," she said, in accents at once of disillusion and disdain. "I did not know there was any such danger. I should hate to be a monkey." Then her eyes brightened again. "May I go and get them now?" she asked, wistful ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... upon Hugh—"do you think that the Earl will consent to a longer delay, that the maiden may grow accustomed to the thought? She has as yet spoken to no man but myself and her brothers, and though she is fearless and of a high spirit"—he broke off suddenly, and then with a wistful glance at Sir Hugh, added, "Will the Earl delay awhile?" Sir Hugh felt a great pity for the man who stood so anxiously before him, but he hardened his heart and said, "I think that the Earl will not delay his purpose: he is swift to do his will." A great cloud of sadness ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... graceless, the contour thick, and her face, peering out of the thick veil, is altogether displeasing. One has no right to look for beauty in Donatello's statues of adults: character is what he gives. But neither does one expect this kind of vagary. There is great merit in the plaintive and wistful ugliness of the Zuccone: Here the ugliness is wanton, and therefore inexcusable. The Crivelli tomb and the Baptist in San Giovanni Fiorentino have been already described. There were other products of Donatello's visit to Rome, but they are now lost. Tradition still ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... quite worn out. He saw that, and retired for the night, casting one more wistful glance on her. But at that moment she was afraid to look at him. Her heart was welling over with tenderness for the dear friend whose life ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... with her pleading, wistful eyes, spoke day after day of Julia, of her dutiful love toward her, and her growing love for me, I drifted, almost without an effort of my own volition, into an engagement with her. You see there was no counter-balance. I was acquainted with every girl on the island ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... coffee, I shall be most pleased. You must excuse me, for I never take anything before midday. I am a recluse, have been for many years and rarely stir abroad. I do not intend to return to the world unless I can bring something with me worth having." A wistful smile twisted a little the corners of ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... easy, affectionate, slightly wistful manner of fat men. Mr. Poppins's large round friendly childish eyes were never sarcastic. He was the man who makes of a crowd in the Pullman smoking-room old friends in half an hour. In turn, Mr. Wrenn did not ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... face was a study as he lay back upon the grass in the cool shade of a clump of pines. Whimsical and wistful, it was occasionally lit by a peculiar smile which carried a hint of sadness. His eyes half closed, dreamily. The smoke from his cigarette curled upward in a thin spiral in the still air of the altitudes. His horse, with reins dangling and saddle cinch loosened, ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... wanted me to ask if you had a large safety-pin." Marjorie looked a little wistful, as if she did not quite like ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... leaf, the first of many, rustles—seem more intense and pregnant with that mystic mournfulness which is the Thames, and which is London. The dull sphinx-like water rolling through multitude of bricks, seemed to mark on this wistful autumn day a more melancholy enchantment, and looking out on the great waste of brick delicately blended with smoke and mist, and seeing the hay-boats sailing picturesquely, and the tugs making for Blackfriars, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... took the boy's head upon his knees, and directed the negro to drive gently along the road leading to the weaver's. And with what infinite tenderness the stranger supported the light form; with what wistful interest he contemplated the livid young face. And so at an easy pace they reached the ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... seemed to you a glimpse of the gallant age when forbears had gone whistling to the headsman. He was of a line which counted in English history, which among its women had a Lady Jane Grey. His mother, with the mother's wistful love and pride, had traced that line for him. He was not deeply moved, unless by the romance and the ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... out, but he couldn't use it much for the next few days, and did not feel eager to hunt when his father and the Tyee started out in the morning. Kalitan remained with him, although his eyes looked wistful, for he had heard the chief talk about bear tracks having been seen the day before. Bears were quite a rarity, but sometimes an old cinnamon or even a big black bruin would venture down in search of fresh fish, which he would catch cleverly with ...
— Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin • Mary F. Nixon-Roulet
... the gate of iron Pressed his wan and wistful face, Gazing with an awe-struck pleasure At the glories of the place; Never had his brightest day-dream Shone ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... quite like having Alice associate with such people," objected Miss Flower. Then, softened by the wistful eagerness of Alice's face, she added, "Still, in this case, the child is so young that I really think there would be no harm, except that the manager might object to having the little girl disturbed between ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... was too faint or frightened for that, and suffered herself to be hoisted about, "passive to all changes." Ormiston spread his cloak in the stern of the boat, and laid her tenderly upon it, and though the beautiful, wistful eyes were solemnly and unwinkingly fixed on his face, the pale, sweet lips parted not—uttered never a word. The wet bridal robes were drenched and dripping about her, the long dark hair hung in saturated masses ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... "experience meeting" at which he had sought to canvass his spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of the existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality is inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... him of a welcome as deep as it was undemonstrative. Of Kate Underwood, in whom he had felt more than a passing interest, remembering Whitcomb's love for his cousin, he recalled a tall, slender, girlish form; a wealth of golden-brown hair, and a pair of large, luminous brown eyes, whose wistful, almost appealing look haunted him strangely, though he was unable to recall another feature ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... how they were getting along. The tall man, with a look of wistful sadness like that of a hungry ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... prefigured to her that morning in the department store. Sometimes his face had been quite boyish; other times, when taking his fiercest punishment, it had been bleak and gray; and still later, when living through and clutching and holding on, it had taken on a wistful expression. But now, out of danger himself and as he forced the fight, his fighting face came upon him. She saw it and shuddered. It removed him so far from her. She had thought she knew him, all of ...
— The Game • Jack London
... scene from the wild and wonderful in Nature. Its romantic luxuriance must win the attention of the artist, and the admiration of the less wistful beholder; while the philosophic mind, unaccustomed to vulgar wonder, may seek in its formation the cause of some of the most important changes of the earth's surface. Our esteemed friend and correspondent Vyvyan, is probably familiar with the locality ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... of his master from this strange resting place. Perhaps the journey in the cart and the promiscuous burial had confused the poor beast's mind as to whether indeed his master lay there at all. With many wistful glances backwards, he still followed the boys; and when they paused at length beside a spring of fresh water, he needed little urging to jump in and refresh himself with a bath, emerging thence in better spirits and ravenously hungry, as they quickly found when they ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... conscious of a marked increase in the exhilaration the starting of the expedition had brought to him. At the back of his mind he realized there had been all along a kind of wistful resentment at the change in this girl's manner toward him. During the brief conversation when he had told her of his having secured his present situation, and later, only a few minutes back, on the platform of Paddington Station, he had sensed a coldness, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... girl's face grew sadder and whiter, and her eyes had in them always an expectant, wistful look, as if waiting for some one or something, which would lift from her the dark cloud under which she was laboring. Jake, who had returned from Richmond, suffered nearly as much as she did. His pride in his family—such as ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... "Our Pan is dead; His pipe hangs mute beside the river; Around it wistful sunbeams quiver, But Music's airy voice is fled. Spring mourns as for untimely frost; The bluebird chants a requiem; The willow-blossom waits for him;— The Genius ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... At the same time, he could not bear that Amabel should do anything to tire herself, and was very anxious that Philip should not be neglected. He tossed from one side to the other in burning oppression or cold chills; Amy saw him looking wistful, suggested something by way of alleviation, then found he had been wishing for it, but refraining from asking in order to spare her, and that he was sorry when she procured it. Again and again this happened; she smoothed ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her long eyelashes, and examined the toe of a smart brown shoe with a wistful resignation. Courtenay was politely incredulous, but the arrival of the steward with the replenished tea-tray ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... called her to much worse places; therefore, when she died, the angels buried her on Sinai," answered the prisoner; before whose wistful eyes drifted the memory ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... gentlemen," denied strenuously that it could have been John's voice she heard, and resolutely declared, in the teeth of everything, that it was Mr. Inglethorp who had been in the boudoir with her mistress. A rather wistful smile passed across the face of the prisoner in the dock. He knew only too well how useless her gallant defiance was, since it was not the object of the defence to deny this point. Mrs. Cavendish, of course, could not be called upon to give ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... slumbered below their feet, the gentle ripples which played over it sparkling in the bright rays of the sun. A large vessel, with a wide spread of canvas, was gliding majestically by on her way down channel. Ned gazed at her with a wistful eye. ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... did not notice my use of her first name or she did not object. She seemed so friendly, so helplessly wistful. "Yes. It's very pretty. An antique. I've seen a ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... the promenade, and there was little driving; but the sidewalks were peopled thickly enough with persons, in groups, or singly, who had the air of straying aimlessly up or down, with no purpose but to be in the sun, after the rainy weather of the past week. There were faces of invalids, wistful and thin, and here and there a man, muffled to the chin, lounged feebly on the parapet and stared at the river. Colville hastened by them; they seemed to claim him as one of their ailing and aging company, and just then he was in ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... susceptible to music. One afternoon his mother was playing in the twilight to herself. She was startled to hear a sound behind her. Glancing round, she beheld a little white figure distinct against an oak bookcase, and could just discern two large wistful eyes looking earnestly at her. The next moment the child had sprung into her arms, sobbing passionately at he knew not what, but, as his paroxysm of emotion subsided, whispering over and over, with shy urgency, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... their glare the woman changed. "My friend, must I not love you any longer? You would be content with happiness? Then I am jealous of that happiness! for you are the one friend that I have had, and so dear to me—Look you!" she said, with a light, wistful laugh, "there have been times when I was afraid of everything you touched, and I hated everything you looked at. I would not have you stained; I desired to pass my whole life between the four walls of some ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... was sincere, and the bliss came from the knowledge of her security. She felt it wonderful to have such a sense of safety as that she experienced in gazing across the street at the girl's wistful face. It was like the overpowering thankfulness with which a man on a rock looks on while others drown. It wasn't callousness; it was only an appreciation of mercies. She was genuinely sorry for the girl, if the girl needed sorrow; but she didn't see what she could ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... silvered rice-grass grew tall among the piles of whitened driftwood, she paused, looking with wistful eyes toward the Indian Village cuddled in the crescent curve of the beach. The weird, ghostly totems of her people rose above the roofs, catching the moonbeams fearfully on their mystic carvings. Stern and forbidding they seemed, as if guarding ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... grown up, her head was finely poised on a graceful neck; her skin was soft and fair, shading into a fresh pink about the cheeks; her eyes were deep and thoughtful, and her mouth, around which mischief and merriment had once played, now expressed seriousness and wistful longing. ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... said a voice at my elbow. I turned. It was the professor. There was a sad, wistful expression on his face. "Quod erat demonstrandum," he said softly. "Q.E.D." Then, as the horns got louder, and we could hear drivers cursing, he strode down the street and around ...
— "To Invade New York...." • Irwin Lewis
... want to see him. I am sure he will do me good. You will let him come, please?" The dark eyes were shining with another light, more wistful, more tender. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... darkest and days most dark; when the sun seems farthest from the planet and cheers it with lowest heat; when the fields lie shorn between harvest-time and seed-time and man turns wistful eyes back and forth between the mystery of his origin and the mystery of his end,—then comes the great pageant of the winter solstice, ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... shoulders of two little girls, one of them having her face just below that of the other, whose little arms were round her sister's neck. I knew them in an instant. There was no mistaking that look of decision in the face of the protecting little damsel, nor the wistful appealing glance in the eyes of the other. The artist had caught both most happily; and though the fair locks I had admired were uncovered, I knew my little ladies of the beaver ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... holy and the pure, as I seemed unable to find them here on the earth. In the quiet solemnity of church, or under the blue skies, I could detach myself from my surroundings and reach up and out with wistful dimness towards the ineffable holiness and purity of God—God who, for me at least, remained persistently ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... Michelangelo has thought only of Life,—of the Creation of Man, of the Judgment of the World, which is really the Resurrection,—so here he has thought only of Death, of the death of the body, of the soul, and of the wistful life of the disembodied spirit that wanders disconsolate, who knows where?—that sleeps uneasily, who ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... loose the band, and win the expectant bride! Sir Gugemer, when first the tidings came Of the quaint girdle, and the stranger dame. Ween'd well Nogiva's self, his dame alone, Bore this mysterious knot so like his own. On to the tournament elate he hies, There his liege lady greets his wistful eyes: What now remain'd? "Meriadus! once more I view," he cries, "the mistress I adore; Long have our hearts been one! great king, 'tis thine Twin [Errata: Twain] lovers, sadly sunder'd long, to join. So will I straight do homage, so remain Thy liegeman three full years, sans ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... could scarcely feel the line. My enthusiasm sank with the temperature, and I suggested, not without trepidation, that we should give it up. My companions assented to the abstract proposition; but, with that wistful half-expectancy so characteristic of anglers, did not at once commence to wind up their lines. I was, therefore, just on the point of setting them an example when one of them exclaimed excitedly, 'Wait a second; I had such a lovely bite!' That was all; but it gave us ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... wall—washing vainly against it with a wistful wailing swish—seems to be thrown back on itself, and then to hasten away on either side, where lies the moist fog ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Powers above; There is no Resurrection for the Love That, nursed with tenderest care, yet fades away In the chilled heart by inward self-decay. Like a lorn Arab old and blind 5 Some caravan had left behind That sits beside a ruined Well, And hangs his wistful head aslant, Some sound he fain would catch— Suspended there, as it befell, 10 O'er my own vacancy, And while I seemed to watch The sickly calm, as were of heart A place where Hope lay dead, The spirit of departed Love 15 Stood ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... to me in this very room like a haunting ghost, sir"—Captain Mitchell was talking of his Nostromo with true warmth of feeling and a touch of wistful pride. "You may imagine, sir, what an effect it produced on me. He had come round by sea with Barrios, of course. And the first thing he told me after I became fit to hear him was that he had picked up the lighter's boat floating in the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... small features, her thick dark hair, her clear white skin with a tracery of blue veins in the temples. Her high-bridged nose and firm chin suggested some force of character, but that suggestion was counteracted by her wistful tender mouth, with drooping underlip. The face, on the whole, was a paradoxical one, containing elements of strength and weakness, and the eyes were the index to a strange ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... a wistful little smile, and put up her face for a kiss; but her reception of the crust ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... summer sparkle, the long low fall of the waves is sad. But how much more on a winter night, when the moon is away below the sea, and weary waters roll unseen from a vast profundity of gloom, fall unreckoned, and are no more than a wistful moan, as man is! ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Ann was neither very strong nor well. And as to her being happy, you can judge for yourself when you have read all this story. She was very small for her age, with a rather pale face and big dark eyes which had in them a frightened, wistful expression that went to Aunt Frances's tender heart and made her ache to take care of Elizabeth Ann better ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... manner and tone with really dramatic effect; his face grew suddenly grave, his voice was sad, and he gazed into Ortensia's eyes with a wistful lover-like expression that ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... stormy banks I stand and cast a wistful eye Toward Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie. I'm bound for the Promised Land, I'm bound for the Promised Land. Oh! who will come and go with me, I'm ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... The odd wistful twist at the corner of Terry's mouth disappeared for a moment in his slow smile; this was so like these people, who bore big troubles stoically and reacted powerfully ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... about right. Well—you see," he cast an apologetic glance at Mary Sands, who had come in quietly and sat down with her sewing in the front room, "I've always laid it to some to the fire. Look at your house here, boys!" he gave a wistful glance round the two bright, tidy, cheerful rooms. "If I had a home like this, would I be a rover? I guess not! I guess I shouldn't need no cobbler's wax on the seat of the chair to hold me down; but if all you had come home to was an empty cellar hole, not a stick nor a stitch—nothing ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... tragic power and distinction of language; Robert Frost has been able to distil the essence of all of them in three slender books of verse; Edwin Arlington Robinson in a few brief poems has created the wistful Tilbury Town and has endowed it with pathos at once more haunting and more lasting than that of any New England village chronicled in prose; it has remained for the Pennsylvanian Joseph Hergesheimer in Java Head to seize most artfully upon the riches ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... delivery of his wares. Handkerchiefs wave, hurried orders mingle with parting blessings, and the steamer is "off." As you turn your face cityward, and glance hurriedly around at the retreating crowd, you will see a reflection of your own wistful face in theirs, and read the solution of one of the problems which perplex the California enthusiast. Before you lies San Francisco, with her hard angular outlines, her brisk, invigorating breezes, her bright, but unsympathetic sunshine, her restless and energetic population; behind you fades the ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... pretty picture. Christian, sitting apart, with the gulf of shining mahogany between, bridged it often with her wistful eyes, but she never said ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... begged Janith to let him rent a super mech. And she had scoffed at his wastefulness. Yet, now that he remembered it again, there had been a wistful note of hope in ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... little boat, waving our hats to the crew, who had crowded to the side to give us a cheer; and the last faces I noted as they glided away were those of the carpenter and the boy, who gazed after us in a wistful way, the latter looking miserable in the extreme as he held his left hand over ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... pantry where the ways are dark. You will wander in search of the caverns that lie beneath the stairs when the night has come. You will trudge up steps and down for any lurking ocean on which to sail your pirate ships. Already I see you gazing with wistful eyes into the spaces beyond the door—into the days of your great adventure. In your thought is the patter and scurry of new creation. It is almost fairy time for you. The tread of the friendly giants, still far off, is ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... alone, in wistful idleness, there came a knock at the door—a pompous rat-tat-tat, with a stout tap-tap or two added, once and for all to put the quality of the visitor beyond doubt. The door was then cautiously pushed ajar to admit the head of the personage thus impressively heralded. And a most extraordinary ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... complexion, violet eyes with long, thick lashes, and naturally wavy golden hair be the hallmarks of the fairies, then Noreen Daleham might claim to be one. Her face in repose had a somewhat sad expression, due to the pathetic droop of the corners of her little mouth and a wistful look in her eyes that made most men instinctively desire to caress and console her. But the sadness and the wistfulness were unconscious and untrue, for the girl was of a sunny and happy disposition. And the men that ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... me how dear hands would close These wistful eyes in welcome night, and fold These poor, tired hands in blameless idleness. In tender mood I pictured forth the spot Wherein I should be laid ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... in the man's eyes told Philip enough. The sexton said in a low voice: "He belonged to the Southern Episcopal Church in Virginia." Something in the wistful look of the sexton gave Philip an inspiration for ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... very threshold of Christianity—"see how these Christians hate one another." Officers would throw the taunt up again and again in the Mess, and the men lying down to talk themselves to sleep in their comfortless barns would begin to talk about religion with at heart a wistful longing to understand it and know its help and power. At once, someone would bring up the picture of squabbling denominations, and the wistfulness and hope would be slain by scorn. Next day and every day, the glaring scandal ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... Mr. Ramy. His lips parted in a smile which showed a row of yellowish teeth with one or two gaps in it; but in spite of this disclosure Ann Eliza thought his smile extremely pleasant: there was something wistful and conciliating in it which agreed with the pathos of his sunken cheeks and prominent eyes. As he took the lamp, the light fell on his bulging forehead and wide skull thinly covered with grayish hair. His hands were pale ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... hands and face, and smooth her tangled hair, that lay all over the pillow like stray sun-beams. She submitted passively to all of it, and appeared to notice no one, except now and then to turn her eyes to Mrs. Dane, with a puzzled, pleading look, and mutter with a wistful longing: "It isn't so, is it? I know it isn't;" then would drift into some unintelligible murmurings, or lay quiet with no expression of any kind in ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... while I ceased speculating, dismissed the mayor, the chemist, and the skull from my mind, and smoked pensively, watching the sun low dipping in the western ocean. As the twilight fell for a moment over ocean and moorland, a wistful, restless happiness filled my heart, the happiness that all men ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... big, wistful eyes were turned upon him in quick alarm. "I'm scared, Joe, if you took a horse without asking. What'll they think? ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... transferred to the emigrant-train for another week's voyage by land to the ends of the continent, is one of the most pathetic sights in this world, especially if they are foreign to our speech and dress and modes of life. How wistful and helpless and strayed they look!—a bit of still and stranded life in the sweep and roar of a world that must seem to them as wild and as soulless as the ocean they have just left. How unconsciously they group themselves in picturesque attitudes, which no artistic ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... came out in all his true goodness and kindness. He went with her himself to the cottage, and when the vigil was over appeared again to take her home. It was a wintry night, frosty and clear, the stars all twinkling with that mysterious life and motion which makes them appear to so many wistful eyes like persons rather than worlds, and as if there was knowledge and sympathy in those far-shining lights of heaven. Sir Thomas was alarmed by Lucy's colourless face, and the dumb passion of misery and awe that was about her. He was very tender-hearted ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... are generally so reasonable," he protested, astonished and wistful; "why, it seems to me that you must be willing—after a while? Here we are, two people getting along in years, and our children have made a match of it; and we are used to each other, that's a very important thing in marriage. It's just plain common sense, after David is on his own legs in the ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... of prodigious length. His ribs were plain to see on either side his hollow barrel, and over them the loose skin rolled to and fro as he ran or walked. The eyes of every member of the pack were deeply sunken and ablaze with a dry light, half wistful and half fierce, and more awe-inspiring than any form of full-fed rage could be. They ran in open order now, and when one happened to run unusually close to another, that other would snarl or growl, and, sometimes, even snap, with bitter, furtive, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... little room, very poor but very neat, where, at the one window, sat a young girl, with crutches by her side and her lap full of flower-leaves and petals. She rose slowly as Belle came in, and then stood looking at her, with such a wistful expression in her shy, bright eyes, that Belle's anxious face cleared involuntarily, and her ...
— Marjorie's Three Gifts • Louisa May Alcott
... judge's face closely. He caught the latter's slight nod and his lips straightened. "Yes, it must have been drink," he continued; "I have inferred that from what mother has hinted now and then. But——" and a wistful gleam came into his eyes—"I have hoped that it would not be drink that would ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... down To the live sea, By working, marrying, breeding Shoreham Town, Breaking the sunset's wistful and solemn dream, An old, black rotter of a boat Past service to the labouring, tumbling flote, Lay stranded in mid-stream: With a horrid list, a frightening lapse from the line, That made me think of legs and a broken spine: Soon, ...
— Hawthorn and Lavender - with Other Verses • William Ernest Henley
... glad, and, accompanying Charlton to his office, was introduced to Annie Adams, a well-known actress from Salt Lake City, and her wistful-eyed little daughter, Maude. They were both members of the John McGuire Company. This was Charles Frohman's first ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... earlier than usual. My gentle bride had been subdued into a silence, not sullen, but so sad that when her wistful eyes followed my every movement as I prepared to start, I could willingly, to bring back their brightness, have renounced the promise of the day. But this must not be; and turning to take leave ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... observations cropped up from time to time through debate, which occupied greater part of sitting. CARSON having genially alluded to main body of Ministerialists as "lunatics," NEIL PRIMROSE, turning upon the WISTFUL WINSTON, who hadn't been saying anything, denounced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... East and West Indians had secured them all at the rate of three thousand pounds at the least."[10] And an Englishman after traveling in the French and British Antilles in 1825 wrote: "The French colonists, whether Creoles or Europeans, consider the West Indies as their country; they cast no wistful looks toward France.... In our colonies it is quite different; ... every one regards the colony as a temporary lodging place where they must sojourn in sugar and molasses till their mortgages will let them live elsewhere. They call England ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... again. And truly the boy was a pleasant object for her eyes to rest upon. He was very fair as to hair and complexion, though his eyes were dark and wistful; he was an ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... seriously at a loss for some method of dealing with a child so wistful of eyes and so damaging of habits. A teacher's standing on the books of the Board of Education depends to a degree upon the punctuality and regularity of attendance to which she can inspire her class, and Yetta was reducing ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... shaking down a fortune from the green ivy-bushes that hung at the vintners' doors, the western continent, at which he had already cast wistful glances, remained the treasure-house of Spain. His unfortunate but indomitable half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, recalled it to his memory. The name of Gilbert deserves to be better remembered than it is; and America, at least, will one day be constrained to ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... way to must be conquered. She knew that, without any possibility of doubt, his coming would seal her fate—whatever it was to be. She must wait until then. A long, shuddering sigh ran through her. "Ahmed! Ahmed Ben Hassan," she murmured slowly, lingering with wistful tenderness on the words. She pressed her face closer into the cushions, clasping her hands over her head, and for a long time lay very still. The heat was intense and every moment the tent seemed to grow more airless. The room was stifling, and, with ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... eye was a small and rather ethereal figure with sleek brown hair and wistful eyes; nice eyes, of no particular color. Pretty with the beauty of youth, sensitive and thoughtful, infinitely loyal and capable of suffering and not otherwise extraordinary was Elizabeth Wheeler ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... because she had received it so long, partly because that detached frame of mind of the hopeless invalid made the life about her seem shadowy and unreal. Nothing really mattered much. She lay back in her chair with the little wistful smile, the somber light in her eyes that had ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... room which she certainly would never have expected. When she came in as usual she saw something small and dark in her chair,—an odd, tiny figure, which turned toward her a little, weird-looking, wistful face. ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... so strong he brought me 'way up here in his arms," the lad exulted, "and he wasn't tired a bit! I wish he could come and stay with me daytimes," the wistful voice went on, "but he has to sleep then. He ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... words, accompanied though they were with a smile, she gave the baron such a sweet, wistful look that he could no longer resist; but the appearance of Pierre at this moment with a large omelette created a diversion, and interrupted this interesting conversation. They all immediately gathered ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the woman who had come first, and must have been well over six feet. His clean-shaven, aquiline face was of a dead pallor. There were dark shadows and a disagreeable fulness under his gray, wistful eyes, which seemed to appeal for help without any hope of receiving it. He walked wearily and slouchingly, stooping a little, as if he were too tired or bored to take the trouble of throwing ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... empty when they entered it, and as Bessie noticed Mrs. Sefton's wistful look round the room, ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a pretty little fellow, though there was something wan and wistful in his small face. His temper gave abundant promise of being imperious in after life; and he had as hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful subservience of all other things and persons to it as heart could wish. He was childish and sportive enough ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... at the moment, there seemed to be waiting at the end of the road a little bent old woman, into whose wistful eyes they were to bring the light of ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... quite grey. Within his clothes he was the merest skeleton, being so thin that his shoulder-blades stood out in sharp outline, and his hands were almost transparent. The redeeming feature in Saunderson was his eyes, which were large and eloquent, of a trustful, wistful hazel, the beautiful eyes of a dumb animal. Whether he was expounding doctrines of an incredible disbelief in humanity or exalting, in rare moments, the riches of a divine love in which he did not expect to share, or humbly beseeching his brethren to give him information on some point in ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... except perhaps as regards her figure, which was agile, rounded, and peculiarly graceful. Her foreign-looking face was unusual, dark-eyed, a somewhat large and very mobile mouth, fair and waving hair, a broad forehead, a sweet and at times wistful face, thoughtful for the most part, but apt to be irradiated by sudden smiles. Not a beautiful woman at all, but exceedingly attractive, one ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... were little they kept sending me snap-shots of you, first as a baby and then as a child in socks playing on the beach with a pail and shovel, and then suddenly as a wistful little girl with wondering, pure eyes—and I used to build dreams about you. A man has to have something living to cling to. I think, Lois, it was your little white soul I tried to keep near me—even when ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... do that, Ma, when nobody knows his address?" objected Pa, with a wistful look at ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his son a magnificent book, and chide him because he cut instead of untying the string of the parcel. Long after, the boy, disentangling his father's early life in diaries and letters, would wish, with a wistful regret, that he had only had the clue to this earlier; he would have sympathised, he thought, with the idea that lay beneath the little economies, instead of fretting over them, and discussing them rebelliously ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... little notches and the longer ones reached farther and farther along the window-sill, until Ward began to foresee the time when he must start a new row. Day by day his cheek-bones grew more clearly defined, his eyes bigger and more wistful. Day by day his knuckles stood up sharper when he closed his hands, and day by day Nature worked upon his hurt, knitting the ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... square just behind them. In the front row sat Mary, looking at him with wide-open, trusting eyes. And he was revolving these hands like pillows around each other, trying to make the sombre men and the wistful girl laugh with him, while over and over certain words slipped in between his cachinnations, like stray bird-notes through a ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... chamber o'er the gate Lay Menelaus on his carven bed, And swift and sudden as the stroke of Fate A deep sleep fell upon his weary head. But the soft-winged God with wand of lead Came not near Helen; wistful did she lie, Till dark should change to grey, and grey to red, And golden throned Morn sweep o'er ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... you, little Mavis, because then such a wistful, faraway look comes into your eyes, which is one of the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... grew sad, while Thurston rebelled against an instinctive conviction that she knew a wistful expression was becoming to her and was calculated to appeal to a ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... arranging plans with the brave Courier, when there came a modest little tap at the door, which opened on an outer gallery surrounding a court-yard; and an intensely shabby little man looked in, to inquire if the gentleman would have a Cicerone to show the town. His face was so very wistful and anxious, in the half-opened doorway, and there was so much poverty expressed in his faded suit and little pinched hat, and in the thread-bare worsted glove with which he held it—not expressed the less, because these were evidently his genteel ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... we found a widow[7] weeping and working by the side of a little cradle where lay a sick child, whose large luminous eyes shone with almost phosphorescent brilliancy from great cavernous sockets, as they wandered from one to another, with a wistful, soul-querying gaze. Its forehead was large and prominent, so much so that looking at the upper part of the head one would little imagine how terrible the emaciation of the body, which was little more than skin and bones, speaking more eloquently than words of the ravages ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... wild, wistful look on the woman as she said this; then she moved a step toward her, and the tones of her voice, as they came through her white lips, were mournful and ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... and licked my face as I came alongside him, his wistful eyes saying as plainly as dog could speak, "Thank God, Tom, you've come to help me," ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... Love! I lay my wistful hands in thine A little while before you seek the dark, Untraversed ways of War and its Reward, I cannot bear to lift my gaze and mark The gloried light of hopeful, high emprise That, like a bird already poised for flight, Has waked within your eyes. For ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... I going to do without you, you mean," corrected Marjorie Dean, with a wistful smile. "Please, please don't let's talk of it. ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester
... let the merry thatcher veel Fine weather on his brow, As he, in happy work, do kneel Up roun' the new-built mow, That now do zwell in sich a size, An' rise to sich a height, That, oh! the miller's wistful eyes Do sparkle at the zight An' long mid stand, A happy band, To till the land, Wi' head an' hand, By ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... don't get enough of it," said Maggie. She found herself looking back to the Chapel services with wistful regret. What had there been there that was not here? Here everything was ordered, arranged, in decent sequence, in regular symmetry and progression. And yet no one seemed to Maggie to listen to what they were saying, and no one thought ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole |
