"Wistfully" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Messiah would come quickly," said Naomi wistfully. "And if he can make me see, he can make lame Enoch straight. I would that Enoch's old grandmother had not died and that he had not gone so far away to live ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... noticed it long ago; I mean, where it stands. The quaintest bit, a genuine antique! And holding the stuffiest collection of old books, too! I believe they may be valuable, out-of-print, early editions. If," her voice faltered wistfully, "if Father ever forgives me for being happy with Ethan, and comes to visit us, he would love every musty old volume. Do you think Mother and he ever ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... speak," she thought wistfully. "I hate to do it. I always did hate meddling. My mother always used to say that ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler and them she meddled with was worse than the first. ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... his mother's hand, and pressed it against his wan little cheek. Then Silvia rang a bell that was beside her, and a woman came to take the child away, he, as he walked in silence from the room, looking back and smiling wistfully. ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the end of {87} the rainbow? You will find an occasional Overlander passing the sunset of his days in quiet retreat at Yale or Hope or Quesnel or Barkerville. He does not wear evidence of great earthly possessions, though he may refer wistfully to the golden age of those long-past adventurous days. The leaders who survived became honoured citizens of British Columbia. Few came back to the East. They passed their lives in the wild, free, new land that had given ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... full of dainty rooms, and I followed her from one to another, and one there was just like that in which I had seen her writing, with the old escritoire, and the books, and the burning candles, and the silver photograph shrine. She walked about very wistfully, and her eyes were full. So were mine, and I wanted to sob, but feared lest she should hear. Presently Jim joined her, and they walked together, and said to each other, 'Think, this is our home at last'—'Think, this is our home at last. O love, our ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... pushed among the stalwart copper-colored men of Oas, gazing a little wistfully at the women's proud breasts and the strong young thews of their lovers beside them. If only he were young again.... Asha sighed, and knocked upon the low, rude door ...
— The Sun King • Gaston Derreaux
... Walter Prichard Eaton, in a manner of writing that has of late years won him a large place in the hearts of readers, thoughtfully contemplates the abandoned farmhouse, and lingers wistfully beside the beached and crumbling craft of the "unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea." Few can read, or, better, hear read, his closing paragraph without thrilling to that "other harmony of prose." That such a cadenced and haunting passage should have been published as recently as 1917 should ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... returns to Tabbas in the morning by himself. When on the point of departing, he surveys me wistfully across a few feet of space and shouts "h-o-i!" He then regards me with a peculiar and indescribable smile. It is not a very hard smile to interpret, however, and I present him with the customary backsheesh. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... o' you, Miss," she cried, "and indeed I'll be thet grateful, if you'd just come and tell me the best thing to do for Minnie. I'm not much of a 'and in sickness." She looked at the two visitors wistfully. "It does a body good jist to 'ave a word with somebody that's sorry for ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... with his eyes bent down on the ground, and he said nothing; and Birdalone glanced on him wistfully ere she went on with her tale. And she went on and told closely all that had happened unto her in the crossing of the water and on the Isle of Increase Unsought, and the other Wonder Isles; and she deemed it not too much that she ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... with mud floors—without windows, in fact without anything but their four walls—neither bench, chair, nor table. Although we travel with our own beds, this looked rather uninviting, especially after the pleasant quarters we had just left; and we turned our eyes wistfully towards a pretty small house upon a hill, with a painted portico, thinking how agreeably situated we should be there! Colonel Y—— thereupon rode up the hill, and presenting himself to the owner of this house, described our forlorn prospects, and he kindly consented to permit us all ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... He gazed wistfully at Phoebe, who did not move or speak, but let her eyes wander in awed delight over the wonders thus brought ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... in there, governor?' he asked, wistfully. 'I'll do anything you ask, short o' murder, governor, if you ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... painted in harsh tones, and a bitter devil rose up and lurked in her eyes. It was evident that the same bitter devil rushed hotly to her tongue. But it chanced just then that she glanced at Frona, and all expression was brushed from her face save the infinite tiredness. She smiled wistfully at the girl, and without a word turned ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... her mother; whether it was that she underrated the danger he was like to run, or overrated the prowess and valor of her lover. But so it was, for though she listened eagerly while he was speaking, and gazed at him wistfully after he had become silent, she said nothing. Her beautiful eyes, it is true, swam with big tear-drops for a moment, and her nether lip quivered painfully; but she mastered her feelings, and after a short ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... sure. I thought I might do something with my music. I can play a little. I can't sing—that is, not well enough. If I could," wistfully, "I should have liked to be in opera, as father was, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... time for reconsideration. "I shall expect both of them then, on Saturday," she said and turned to go. She longed to look back towards the kitchen where she felt sure that Elizabeth must have been wistfully listening, but Mrs. Page and Sadie following her to the door, gave her no chance for even a ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... foolish and silly it was to play one's way through life as though it were a nursery, and we children, and to forget that we were grown-up, and that we were getting older with the years. You have been quite content without me, Henry?" she asked, looking up at him wistfully. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... throughout the following pages. Every youth who has in him a spark of adventure will kindle with desire to battle his way also from Green River to the foot of Bright Angel Trail; while every man whose bones have been stiffened and his breath made short by the years, will remember wistfully such wild tastes of risk and conquest that he, too, rejoiced ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... her. There was no one on the piazza, which the moonlight printed with the shadows of the posts and the fanciful jigsaw work of the arches between them. She heard a step on the sandy walk round the corner, and waited wistfully. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the dead that it contained, the morsel of dainty sewing, the little sister's golden curl, the half-finished letter to Mr. Corbet, were all there. She took them out, and looked at each separately; looked at them long—long and wistfully. "Will it be of any use to me?" she questioned of herself, as she was about to put her father's letter back into its receptacle. She read the last words over ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... all the girls and boys in the class a nice present for some reason I haven't got," I said wistfully. "To Belle especially, for she has been so pleasantly not unpleasant to me for the last ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... hand, Sat looking out upon the twilight scene, In dreamy silence. Helen's dark blue eyes, Like two lost stars that wandered from the skies Some night adown the meteor's shining track, And always had been grieving to go back, Now gazed up, wistfully, at heaven's dome, And seemed to recognize and long for home. Her sweet voice broke the silence: "Wish, Maurine, Before you speak! you know the moon is new, And anything you wish for will come true Before it wanes. I ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to be enough for him," said Sam, glancing at the hound, who had gulped down everything thrown him and was gazing wistfully for the next tid-bits that should ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... wish I was more helpful to you, my child," he added wistfully, "but you will rest on him, and be happy together while ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... fire to-night," she said wistfully one evening when the West was colourless; but when that fire is lighted she stands and gazes satisfied. "What does God do when His fire goes out?" was a question on one such evening, as the mountains darkened in the passing of ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... very soon tire of all this, beautiful as it is," said she; and she looked rather wistfully out on the broad, still gardens. "For my part, I should very soon tire of it. I should think there was more excitement in the wild storms and the dark nights of the north; there must be a strange fascination in the short ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the room and John looked wistfully after her. "It is always so," he thought. "If I name children, she goes. What ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... stay to help him bring in the sheep that day, for there was nothing left for her to wonder over, or stand wistfully by her saddle waiting to receive. Neither was there any sound of weeping as she rode up the hill, for the male custom of expressing joy in that way had gone out of fashion on the sheep ranges of this world long ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... back again to its gravity and silence, and the child played about in the shrubberies and sat in the apple-tree gazing wistfully up the dusty high-road. And deep down in his heart the hope still lingered that his father would appear one day. Spring turned into summer, and Bobby spent most of his days out of doors. One afternoon his nurse took him to a farm. She was great friends with the farmer's wife, and Bobby loved a visit ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... spirits have found in them also a certain human pathos, as in displaced beings, coming even nearer to most men, in their very roughness, than the noble and delicate person of the vine; dubious creatures, half-way between the animal and human kinds, speculating wistfully on their being, because not wholly understanding themselves and their place in nature; as the animals seem always to have this expression to some noticeable degree in the presence of man. In the later school of Attic sculpture they are treated with more and ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... Elizabeth-Jane looked wistfully at her questioner. She found that her questioner was looking at her, turned her eyes down; and then seemed compelled to look back again. "My history is not gay or attractive," she said. "And yet I can tell it, if ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... at the machine wistfully. "I wish I could make it work," I said; and I tried as before to tap off my name, and got instead only a confused jumble of letters. It wouldn't even pay me the compliment of transforming my name into that of Shakespeare, as it ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... had been eagerly questioning the younger lad about life at Dynevor, and what they would do when they were at home all together. Joanna was longing to travel that way and lodge a night there; and Gertrude was eloquent in praise of the castle, and looked almost wistfully at Wendot to induce him to add his voice to the general testimony. But he was unwontedly grave and silent, and her soft eyes filled with tears. She knew that he was heavy hearted, and it cut her to the quick; but he did not speak of ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... office, that is—and the Judge, following her, closed the door. His clerk stared wistfully at his own side of that door for a full minute, then sighed heavily and resumed his work, which was copying a list of household effects belonging to a late lamented who had willed them, separately and individually, to goodness ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Hood looked each other full in the face, and Robin Hood gazed wistfully at the king. So also did Sir Richard Lee, and then he knelt down before him on his knee. And all the wild outlaws, when they saw Sir Richard Lee and Robin Hood kneeling before the ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... women in attendance that the patient had fallen asleep, and that they feared his sleep was the final one. He murmured some syllables of kind regret: at the sound of his voice the dying tailor unclosed his eyes, and eagerly and wistfully sat up, clasping his hands with an expression of rapturous gratefulness and devotion that, in the midst of deformity, disease, pain, and wretchedness, was at once beautiful and sublime. He cried with a loud voice, 'The Lord bless and ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... nineteen. About the same time, having studied the controversies between the Papists and Protestants, he deliberately went over to the latter. He next accompanied the Earl of Essex to Cadiz, and looked wistfully over the gulf dividing him from Jerusalem, with all its holy memories, to which his heart had been translated from very boyhood. He even meditated a journey to the Holy Land, but was discouraged by reports as to the dangers of the way. On his return he ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... Not so very long," stammered Ruth hesitatingly. It was terrible to be cross-examined like this, with the eyes of the three men fixed upon her, grave and questioning. She looked wistfully at the door, and half rose from her seat. "I know nothing—I did nothing! I can tell you nothing more! May I go now? There is ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... at sunrise and went out. His host came after him, and stood wagging his tail and looking wistfully up in his face. Gibbie understood him, and, as the sole return he could make for his hospitality, undid his collar. Instantly he rushed off, his back going like a serpent, cleared the gate at a bound, and scouring ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... jarred. Clare was young, and fond of cheerful society, and the iron gate had its counterpart in another barrier, invisible but strong, that shut her out from much she would have enjoyed. She often stood, so to speak, gazing wistfully between the bars at innocent pleasures in which she could not join. Kenwardine, in spite of his polished manners, was tactfully avoided by English and Americans of the better class, and their wives and ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... enrage, rabid, dying for, devoured by desire. aspiring, ambitious, vaulting, skyaspiring, high-reaching. desirable; desired &c v.; in demand; pleasing &c (giving pleasure) 829; appetizing, appetible^; tantalizing. Adv. wistfully &c adj.; fain. Int. would that, would that it were!, O for!, esto perpetual [Lat.] Phr. the wish being father to the thought; sua cuique voluptas [Lat.]; hoc erat in votis [Lat.], the mouth watering, the fingers itching; aut Caesar aut nullus [Lat.]. Cassius has a lean and hungry look [Julius ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and nothing happened, the neighbours began to say that the pretty girl at Billickin's, who looked so wistfully and so much out of the gritty windows of the drawing-room, seemed to be losing her spirits. The pretty girl might have lost them but for the accident of lighting on some books of voyages and sea- adventure. As a compensation against their romance, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... down on the sofa and looked at him for some time gravely and a little wistfully. "I think," she said, "I should feel very angry if any woman made such ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... to him such texts in Hebrew as, "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David," etc. (Zech. 13:1.) And one evening, at the well of Doulis, when the Arab population were all clustered round the water troughs, he looked on very wistfully, and said, "If only we had Arabic, we ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... here to help start the great fight," his father said wistfully, when he had heard all the latest news concerning the temperance campaign, even to the pending disaster. "But you will be finding a Jericho Road up in the bush, I'll ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... Holloway, with that blonde dame upstairs, will be putting on a new musical show, with a new angel. It's a great business, Miss Gwendolyn—no wonder they call it art." And the clerk removed a silk handkerchief from his coat cuff, to dust the register wistfully. "Why didn't I devote my talents to the drama ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... minds about that author's subject—about Goethe himself. Earlier, as we have partly seen, he had, both in prose and in verse, spoken with praise—for him altogether extraordinary, if not positively extravagant—of Goethe; he now seems a little doubtful, and asks rather wistfully for "the just judgment of forty years," the calm revised estimate of the Age of Wisdom. But M. Scherer's estimate is in parts lower than he can bring himself to admit; and this turns the final passages ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... Bird, you must sit still and keep yourself very nice," she said. This was hard, for the children had all been left in the garden-house the night before, and Lota wanted very much to see them. She stood at the window looking wistfully out. By and by the sun flashed gloriously from the clouds, and sent a bright ray right into her eyes. It touched the rain-drops which hung over the bushes, and instantly each became a tiny mimic sun, sending out separate rays of ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... little way with you?" she asked wistfully. "How soon are you going to start? I could go as far as ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... there would be trouble if we wore our country clothes on Broadway, wouldn't there?" asked Lissa wistfully. ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... that wonderful courtesy which Mrs. Jeffrey has taught us. I dare say the queen will be astonished at our qualifications;" and with a merry laugh, as she thought of the appearance she should make at the Court of St. James, Maggie leaped on Gritty's back and bounded away, while Hagar looked wistfully after her, saying as she wiped the tears from her eyes: "Heaven bless the girl! She might sit on the throne of England any day, and Victoria wouldn't disgrace herself at all by doing her reverence, even if she be a child ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... irresolute in the middle of the room. He looked again wistfully at Vera's back. Was it possible that she was not going to give him one word, one look, when surely she must know by whose influence he had been induced to consent ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... been constantly with us, leaping and barking with joy whenever I mounted my horse. He was with us now, and when the rain came on he stood in the mud like the rest of us, finding no spot to lie down in. He grew tired and sleepy, and looked wistfully about for a place he could consent to lie in, but gave it up, and spreading all four legs well apart he tried to stand it out. Occasionally his eyes would close and his head droop, his body would slowly sway back and forth till ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... Hylas, who has come down out of the trees to breed) quacking in treble like a tiny drake. The bark (I suspect) is that of the gorgeous edible frog; and so suspect the young recruits who lounge upon the wall, and look down wistfully, longing, I presume, to eat him. And quite right they are; for he (at least his thigh) is exceeding good to eat, tenderer and sweeter than any ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Rezanov looked at her half in resentment, half wistfully, then shrugged his shoulders, and called to Davidov to steer for the anchorage. She was quite right; and on the whole he was ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... can't go to service now, because I must stop at home with my aunt at night. She can't be left. But I thought if I could be a herd-girl like Elsie Ray, or get weeding to do, or light field-work, or something—" And she looked so eagerly and so wistfully that Nancy was fain to betake herself to mending the fire again. For there was a strange, remorseful feeling stirring not unkindly at Nancy's heart. To use her own words, she "had taken just wonderfully ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... and looking wistfully at his empty hand.] The little maid'll take a brush and sweep up her daddy's crumbs, now, ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... glorious smell of glue, varnish, and shavings. On the other hand, the stranger had one great superiority—he gave her a great deal to eat and, to do him full justice, when Kashtanka sat facing the table and looking wistfully at him, he did not once hit or kick her, and did not once shout: "Go ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... wistfully at the atomic bomb which remained. "If we had a way to throw that thing ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... little sitting-room had a light in it: his wife would be there with the baby. Lot knew them well, though they never had seen her. She had watched them through the window for hours in winter nights. Some damned soul might have thus looked wistfully into heaven: pitying herself, feeling more like God than the blessed within, because she knew the pain in her heart, the struggle to do right, and pitied it. She had a reason for the hungry pain in her blood when the kind-faced old cobbler passed her. She was Nelly's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... search, and very soon finding the moose made away with the whole carcass. Manabozho looked on wistfully, and saw them eat till they were satisfied, when they left him nothing but bare bones. Soon after a blast of wind opened the branches and set him free. He went ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... while Daddy Jack ceased his rocking, and his moaning, and his crying, and sat gazing wistfully into the fireplace. Whatever he saw there fixed his attention, for Uncle Remus spoke to him several times without receiving a response. Presently, however, Daddy Jack exclaimed with characteristic ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... feeble cheers as the cart drove away, and hung about for several minutes after it had passed out of sight, gazing along the road as wistfully as more prosperous men look in through churchyard gates at the acres ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... shaken that she was obliged to receive him as she lay on a sofa, beside the square table which was to have borne their evening feast. She fixed her eyes wistfully upon him, and smiled ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... gazed into the windows of the carriages as the train passed, slackening speed; then with a quick gesture of recognition went forward and turned the handle of one of the doors at which a young girl was standing looking wistfully on the many faces hurrying by. "Nellie Latimer, I am sure," she said in a kind voice; "'tis a dreary night to bid you welcome. I am your Aunt Judith, dear," and assisting the girl out of the carriage, she lifted ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... Sigurd's eyes wandered wistfully beyond the cook-fires and the storehouses to the last hut in the line, before which a dozen men were buckling on cloaks and arming themselves, in a bustle of joyful anticipation. He thrust out his palm with ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... off, and she has the appearance of a woman's untidiness when she is at that particular stage of her toilet. Hands letter to ANNIE, but snatches it away as ANNIE turns to go. She glances at the letter long and wistfully, and her ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... you do,' said Katie, throwing herself on her knees, resting her arms on her sister's lap, and looking up wistfully into her sister's face. Her long hair was streaming down her back; her white, naked feet peeped out from beneath her bedroom dress, and large tears glistened in her eyes. Who could have resisted the prayers of such a suppliant? Certainly not ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... Perhaps he had got a little out of proportion. He was annoyed at the stares of the other men in the smoking room, who seemed now to be reading his discomfiture. As for Nora Black he thought of her wistfully and angrily as a superb woman whose company was honour and joy, a ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... carriage again, and Lily jumped in too. The little sweeper looked wistfully after them; but the snow was becoming more and more in the way of pedestrians, and she had to work ...
— Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... massive door, which occupied one of the sides of the well. Paul tried the lock, but it was so old and rust-eaten that it refused to move. There was no other outlet, and the place was narrow and damp. He looked wistfully at the solitary door, feeling a vague suspicion that it barred the entrance to a mystery, and resolved to return at some future time, when not so harassed with sleepiness and the fatigues of travel, ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... Peter looked wistfully at Margery, and then turned his eyes toward the earth. After sitting in a thoughtful mood for some time, he again regarded his companion, saying, with ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... natural resentment showed itself in every look and word. In his extremity he looked wistfully towards that Whig connection, once the object of his dread and hatred. The Duke of Devonshire, who had been treated with such unjustifiable harshness, had lately died, and had been succeeded by his son, who was still a boy. The King condescended to express ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... left her sentence trailing and let her thin hands fall in her lap limply, palm upward and stared at Jane. Her dark hair was shimmering and floating about her and her dark eyes were pools of light. "Janey," she leaned toward her and spoke wistfully, "are you really as ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... new tenant. Only M. Benest continued to eye it wistfully, as he cast his flies and pondered on his offence, which she had died ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... people bore the pale sufferer to the longer-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Mrs. Jenkins, looking wistfully at the sovereign, which was a great sum of money to a sexton's wife with children, then instantly going on with her dusting; "but it ain't no use tryin' of tricks with our parson. HE ain't one of your Mollies. A man as don't play no tricks with hisself, as I heerd a gentleman say, it ain't no ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... the ripple of summer wind on water—which transformed her in an instant from the woman of the world to the forest maid, the spirit of the indigenous. The mystery of the nomadic ages was in her eyes again as she began her narrative, wistfully, and reminiscently. ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... be of so much more value to them than I can," said Lord Evelyn, wistfully. "I don't suppose you spend more than half ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... east to the State road, to the post-office, kept at Markham's store, and this road took him down by the southern end of the pond, and thence southerly on the State road. He passed along by Dr. Lyman's, Jonah Johnson's, and so on, past houses, and clearings, and woodlands, looking almost wistfully, as if he expected pleasant greetings; but the few he saw merely nodded to him, or called out: "Are you back again?" He paused on the hill by the saw-mill, which overlooked the pond, and gazed long over its beautiful surface, sleeping in utter solitude amid the green hills, under ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... himself into his chair, and gazed wistfully at the picture. His first thought was to thrust his foot through the canvass, but the word "suggestions" and "make his fortune" rang in his ears, and he burst ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... Well, you see, the Owls,—that is, Bertha asked me to come to their room this evening, and of course I want to dreadfully,—though not more dreadfully than I want to come out now," she added, wistfully. "And if I do, you see, I must get my rhetoric done. It's awfully hard, and I am so stupid about it, it takes me for ever. Oh, will you ask me again some ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... a flash of remembrance of the time she had last seen him, which made her almost sorrowful. "Well, dear—we'll do the best we can," she added in a tone which was sweet at least as tenderness could make it. The child looked at her a little wistfully. ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... service is far wider than the capacity of most of us. Amid the hurrying crowds and the flashing lights of Broadway we talked together hour after hour about God and immortality. He said that he could not believe in God. He wistfully wished that he could. He was sure that it must add something beautiful to human life, but for himself he thought that there was no possibility except to live a high, clean, serviceable life until he should fall on sleep. All the way home that night I thought of other ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... "I won't say again that I hope Isabel will not go with you. But she says that it is not naughty to be sorry. You are not angry with me now?" she inquired, looking wistfully into ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... I, lifting a lengthened countenance wistfully to his; "people may do a good deal in an ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... were thus employed, one of them, Karhownoo by name, perceived a Devil-shark, so called, swimming wistfully toward him from out his summer grotto in the reef. No way petrified by the sight, and pursuing the usual method adopted by these divers in such emergencies, Karhownoo, splashing the water, instantly swam toward the stranger. But the shark, undaunted, advanced: a thing so unusual, and fearful, ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Rob gazed wistfully across the opening now beginning to look gloomy, and his eyes rested on the figures of the boatmen who were busily piling up great pieces of dead wood to keep up the fire for the night, the principal objects being to scare away animals, and have a supply of hot embers in the morning ready ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... there, but she had looked at the picture book hundreds of times; and though her doll was a faithful friend, somehow they had nothing to say to each other now. Rosemary flitted about like a will o' the wisp, and finally went to the window, where she stood looking wistfully out. ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... tear stole from beneath her long lashes. Rose looked at her wistfully: then laid her cheek to hers. They leaned back hand in hand, placid ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... ground, buried them in greed and cunning and love of power, and you are reaping envy and malice and cruelty. You were efficient, John; oh, if I had been as efficient as you, how much I could have done for this world—how much—how much!" he mused wistfully. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... wistfully. "Nice of you to say so, but I know better. I'm not a lady. I'm just a harum-scarum, tempery girl that grew up in the hills. If I didn't know it, that wouldn't matter. But I do know it, and so like a little idiot I pity myself because I'm not ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... The San Reve took from the drawer of a cabinet a beautiful pistol. She partly raised the hammer and buzzed the liberated cylinder. It gave forth clear, musical clicks. "Do you see?" said the San Reve half wistfully. "I ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... wistfully after the wagon as Hiram drove out of the yard. Then she turned, with trembling lip, to Mother Atterson: "She—she's awfully pretty," she said, "and Hiram likes her. But she—they're all proud, and I guess they don't think much of folks ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... the while by her mother's coffin, and as she recognized the one that had been brought from the Daer Nol home she was beside herself with joy as one becomes when gaining something for which one has long been striving. However, she immediately controlled her emotion. Then, smiling wistfully, she lightly stroked the ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... Abbasides and was a favourite with Al-Mansur. "More generous or bountiful than Ka'ab" is another saying (A. P., i. 325); Ka'ab ibn Mamah was a man who, somewhat like Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen, gave his own portion of drink while he was dying of thirst to a man who looked wistfully at him, whence the saying "Give drink to thy brother the Namiri" (A. P., i. 608). Ka'ab could not mount, so they put garments over him to scare away the wild beasts and left him in the desert to die. "Scatterer of blessings" (Nashir al-Ni'am) was a title ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... nankeen gaiters, and a few things tied in a handkerchief, and slung on the end of a stick, was seen loitering through the village. He appeared to regard several houses attentively, to peer into the windows that were open, to eye the villagers wistfully as they returned from church, and then to pass some time in ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... a yard or two from the window, her gaze fixed wistfully on Gay and Leveridge. She knew from their looks that she was the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... story was finished, all were silent for a time. Both mother and boy looked heart sick, and gazed wistfully into the blaze that burned brightly in the open grate, as if they might discover there the secret of the mystery, while the father sat with knitted brows, studying carefully the statements which Fred ...
— Under Fire - A Tale of New England Village Life • Frank A. Munsey
... in the work, if the brush touched the slim figure caressingly and lingered wistfully upon the face, no one knew but Chip, and Chip had learned long ago to keep his own counsel. There were some thoughts which he could not whisper into ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... so it is! Mademoiselle Salome come back to us!" joyfully exclaimed the old nun, seizing and fondling the hands of the visitor, and gazing wistfully into her flushed and feverish face. "Yes, yes, I remember you! Mademoiselle Laiveesong! Mademoiselle, the rich banker's heiress! I am very happy to see you, my dear child! And our holy mother will be filled with joy! She has gone to matins now, but will soon ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... he would station himself on the porch at the door of the sick room, looking up wistfully into every face that passed him, in the poor, dumb, asking way, which so endears a dog to us when the shadow of death is on our home. He had never ventured to intrude himself into the house, but now that he was called, ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... had cold water been applied to his face and neck than he came to, and persisted in sitting up. His gaze wandered wistfully over to where his wife was bending over the crippled girl so solicitously. Jack knew, however, that no matter if the rescue had been made too late, Mr. Badger had undoubtedly earned a right to the forgiveness ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... his sex in blindness to the defects that had been so evident to his wife and daughter; and whatever provocation might make him say of my Lady himself, he never permitted a word against her from any one else. He looked wistfully at Betty and said, "My little Aura! It is a kindly thought. Her son must have writ of the child. But I had liefer she had asked me for the ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... door and mounting the waggon drove away as quickly as he could. He was too full of thoughts and plans concerning Mr. Joseph to notice that quick as he was, Mrs. Cox, not waiting this time to change her cap, had come out to the door and with her hand shading her eyes, was looking wistfully after the departing team. ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... change in the apparent intentions of his friend; and he lingered a few moments at the door of the lodge, looking wistfully at its master. But Jyanough bade him go; and a call from Henrich soon brought him again to his former position, and his watchful observation ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... really don't believe he likes it," rejoined Sally, a little wistfully, turning, as she reached the columns of the portico, and ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... the remaining money the Board gave me to lead-line a lot of those IP ships," said McLaurin wistfully. "Can't you make a ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... left them on his last long trip across the plateau before starting for civilization. The warm spring wind blew around them, laden with scent of pine and flower. At their feet the water rippled and cooed little melodies. Claire sat very still, gazing wistfully at the man beside her. Her heart was a lead weight, and her brain ached with the strain ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... more that after which I strayed In face of man or maid; But still within the little children's eyes Seems something, something that replies, They at least are for me, surely for me! I turned me to them very wistfully; But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... the arm of her chair he looked up wistfully, tenderly, as if inviting confidence, sueing for affection. The words, the look, smote Sylvia to the heart, and but for the thought, "I have not tried long enough," she would have uttered the confession that leaped to her lips. Once spoken, it would ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... the fugitives looked wistfully and anxiously towards them. Thank Heaven! they wore the Union blue! Those guidons which rose high in the air bore the Union colors! They were United States ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... with sleep as I sit there and listen. How could I not listen, seeing that Mamma is speaking to somebody, and that the sound of her voice is so melodious and kind? How much its echoes recall to my heart! With my eyes veiled with drowsiness I gaze at her wistfully. Suddenly she seems to grow smaller and smaller, and her face vanishes to a point; yet I can still see it—can still see her as she looks at me and smiles. Somehow it pleases me to see her grown so small. I blink and blink, yet she looks no larger ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed wistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale; then he hesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wife—a sort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand at her throat, then ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... cold stone where they have trod, he rises, when lo! standing by his side, with the package of clothes in his mouth, is the old house dog, Nep; and as the watch in the tower cries, "past eleven o'clock, and all is well," he looks wistfully into his master's face, as if he would ask, is all well? What is to be done? in less than half an hour the ship will be towed out into the stream; there is no time to be lost, but the dog will not think of leaving his master, for his experience of years tells him ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... under the arm of a man a lot shorter than you," Penny assured him with curious vehemence. "And if Penelope Crain is no mean prophet, that's exactly what she'll do within five minutes after she meets you—just as she is wistfully inviting you to join the other men for the cocktail party which is scheduled to break up the bridge game at 5:30. Then, of course, you'll be urged to join us all at the dinner-dance at ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... stable in Malpais, Helen May discovered that this wild, strange land was beautiful. For the first time she gloried in its bigness and its wildness, and did not resent its barrenness. The little brown birds that fluttered close to the ground and cheeped wistfully to one another in the dusk gave her an odd, sweet thrill of companionship. Jack rabbits sitting up on their hind legs for a brief scrutiny before they scurried away made her laugh to herself. The reddened clouds that rimmed the purple were the radiant shores of a ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... anon, in the broad Canadian fields or busy Canadian towns, growing into respectable farmers and citizens; and straightway each little grimed, wan face seemed to bear a new interest for me, and to look wistfully up into mine with a sort of rightful demand on my charity, saying to me, and through me to my many readers, "Come and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... The captive looked wistfully after her, as she left the room. She felt disappointed; for something in the woman's ways and tones had excited a hope within her. Again the key turned on the outside; but it was not long before ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... think it would be of any use my waiting for him?' said the stranger, looking wistfully ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... up wistfully into the stranger's face. "I should not like to die myself," he said, "not yet. I shall not be twenty-one till next birthday. I should ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... listened with a face of perplexity, interposed. "Still, he is my prisoner, is he not?" she said wistfully. "And if I answer ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... father told him, speaking wistfully. "But perhaps you are in the right so to be. In other circumstances I should have been proud to have owned you as my son. As it is..." He broke off abruptly, ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... did not reply at once, but sat so long with her hands clasped tightly on her lap, and her eyes fixed wistfully on the ground, that I had to ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... interest. I have said that his hunger for news touched us. As a matter of fact, few things have impressed me as being more pathetic than that old man's life up there on that isolated and desolate island, where he spends most of his time wistfully longing to hear something of the great world, and painfully recalling the pleasant memories of his childhood's home and friends, and the green fields and spring blossoms he never will know again. ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... can recover it?" he asked quite wistfully, his mind full of this new scheme, and oblivious to the mournful object of ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... at me oddly a second under his brows—a trifle wistfully, though I might naturally think his mood would be quizzical, then he sobered in a moment That's what I loved about the man; a fool would have laughed at the bravado of my notion, a man of thinner sentiment would have marred the moment by ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... the mouths of most girls water. Or Florence received a letter asking her if she would undertake to write three or four stories for such a paper, the terms to be what she herself liked to ask. She looked at them all wistfully. It is true she had not yet lighted a fire in her room, but she put a match to it now, in order to burn the publishers' letters. The story she was copying was about half-done. She had meant to finish it from Bertha's manuscript before she went ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... if the Olympian himself gives a good result at the last, and you will sweep the cobwebs from your bins and you will be glad, I ween, as you take of your garnered substance. And so you will have plenty till you come to grey [1318] springtime, and will not look wistfully to others, but another shall be in ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... friendly advances. All that clothes could do to improve a girl's appearance had certainly been done for her. Every part of her costume, from her fashionable gown to her stylish hat, indicated wealth and good taste; but the face that looked wistfully back at her from the little dressing-room ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... with his illness; notwithstanding its severity, it never confined him to his bed. He was wont to sit in his little parlour, in his easy-chair, dressed in a faded regimental coat, his dog at his feet, who would occasionally lift his head from the hearth-rug on which he lay, and look his master wistfully in the face. And thus my father spent the greater part of his time, sometimes in prayer, sometimes in meditation, and sometimes in reading the Scriptures. I frequently sat with him, though, as I entertained a great awe for my father, I used to ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow |
