"Wan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... suddenly gave way, and her head fell forward upon her sister's shoulder. But only for a moment; that high queenliness was not on the surface, merely, but in the heart, as well. "I think I'm getting tired of Weet-sur-Mer, dad," she said, quite steadily, with a wan little smile. "I seem to be hungering for New York again; wouldn't you like ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... of the lieutenant-colonel of artillery between two windows,—a point from which her eye could rake the rue du Bercail and see all comers. She was a good woman, dressed with bourgeois simplicity in keeping with her wan face furrowed by grief. The rigorous humbleness of poverty made itself felt in all the accessories of this household, the very air of which was charged with the stern and upright morals of the provinces. At this moment the son and mother were together in the dining-room, where ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... spring merrily along, sparkling and singing among tinkling pebbles, here flow calmly and silently into some pale font of marble, all beautiful with life; worked by some unknown hand, long ago nerveless, and fall and pass on among wan flowers, and scented copse, through cool leaf-lighted caves or gray Egerian grottoes, to join the Tiber or Eridanus, to swell the waves of Nemi, or the Larian Lake. The most minute objects (leaf, flower, and stone), while they add to the beauty, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... with ever-increasing anxiety at that wan, withered, dishevelled head, and her eyes filled with tears. "This ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... all! And over each quivering form, The curtain, a funeral pall, Comes down with the rush of a storm— And the angels all pallid and wan, Uprising, unveiling affirm That the play is the tragedy 'Man!' And its hero ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... light from God gave sight of all things dim, And wisdom of all wondrous things, to say What root should bear what fruit of night or day; And sovereign speech and counsel above man: Wherefore his youth like age was wise and wan, And his age sorrowful and fain to sleep." SWINBURNE, Tristram ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... dreams. He thought that he heard people coming up the staircase that he had a glimpse of; that the door opened, and there entered a warrior, leading a lady by the hand, who was young and beautiful, but pale and wan; The man was dressed in complete armour, and his helmet down. They approached the bed; they undrew the curtains. He thought the man said, "Is this our child?" The woman replied, "It is; and the hour approaches that he shall be ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... he had spurned. Luxury in contrast to Dalton Street, to the whirring factories near the church which discharged, at nightfall, their quotas of wan women and stunted children. And yet here he was catering to luxury, providing ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Only wan; an engineer going out to Rio. Them's just his friends seein' him off, I'm thinkin'," returned the captain, ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he had parted last from Aranyani, the day she disappeared. And strange! short as had been the interval of time, he was altered, and it seemed as though years had rolled over him, writing on him in an instant the wrinkles of old age. For he looked like an incarnation of dejection, worn and wan, with eyes that were red and hollow, as if sleep had fled away from them, ousted by her jealous rivals, sorrow and her sister care. And as he saw the sun just on the very point of going down, he murmured to himself: He is but showing me the way, and now very soon, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... strange robes, was a bizarre figure. The hood was thrown back, exposing his pale, black-bearded face, the wan eyes with dark circles under them, ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... less than 20 koku must use the Takeda-wan (Takeda rice-bowl), and the Nikko-zen (Nikko tray).".. (These were utensils of ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... white farthing, that I even preach to them without wage, verily for the love of Heaven, as your idiom hath it, when they see that I live pure and lonely, then they will listen to me. Perchance their hearts will be touched and their eyes opened." His face shone with wan radiance. That was, indeed, the want, he felt sure. No Jew had ever stood before his brethren an unimpeachable Christian, above suspicion, without fear, and without reproach. Oh, happy privilege to ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... who sat in the dark somewhere, With her wan face hid by her falling hair, And her hands clasped over her eyes; And the sickening pain of heart and brain ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... why shrink from Death; That phantom wan? There is nothing in heaven or earth beneath ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... insurmountable difficulty; and as to cases for the pillows, in sheer despair of ever getting any, we had to use clean towels out of our bags in their stead. The double-bedded room was adorned with a gallery of pastel portraits so wan and faded that they looked by the faint gleam of moonlight through the shutters like a procession of ghosts; and there were so many chairs in Mary's room, and such an immensely long table, that it must surely have been used by the ghosts as a dining-hall. Nevertheless, we slept ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... always been somewhat shadowy and wan, had always been slight and slim and small. But was she always as wan and slight as she now seemed? or did he observe it the more from the contrast it presented to Cherry's blooming beauty, to which his eyes had grown used? He asked the question anxiously ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... low, matted bed of straw and a torn blanket or two, in a corner of the dismal shanty, through which the cold winds swept, lay Tim, dying. The hectic flush was on his thin cheek, the glaze of death seemed in his eye. He reached his wan hand to Job. A lad of sixteen he was, but no more years of life ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... watched and prayed quietly the whole night through. When she crept downstairs next morning there was nobody up. The eastern sky was only faintly streaked with red, the morning light was still very wan and pale, but she could see a little, nevertheless. She groped her way across the yard, holding up her dress so as to prevent it from getting wet. There was not a sound to be heard. But hark, what was that cry that sounded so shrill and penetrating in her ear? She gave a sudden ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... that all she committed to memory were the examples of these few worthy female characters of dynasties of yore; while she attached special importance to spinning and female handiwork. To this reason is to be assigned the name selected for her, of Li Wan (Li, the weaver), and the style of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... distressful thing entirely to see a fine gurrl like that wid a husband an' he wed on wan leg. 'Twas mesilf Billjim should ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... skipped, and you stand on the far shore, in the sunset of an elder day: looking now forward, into futurity, from 390, perhaps 394 B.C.; over first a half-cycle of Persian decline,—long melancholy sands and shingle, to—there on the edge of the great wan water,—that July in 330 when mean Satrap Bessus killed his king, Codomannus, last of the Achaemenidae, then in flight from Alexander;—and the House of Cyrus and Darius came to an end. What a time it ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... passionate earnestness. Life without my mother! The very thought was death! I looked in her pale, beautiful face. It was more than pale,—it was wan—it was sickly. There was a purplish shadow under her soft, dark eyes, which I had not observed before, and her figure looked thin and drooping. I gazed into the sad, loving depths of her eyes, till mine were blinded with tears, when ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Each day, howe'er they sought, howe'er they sued, Scarce might they win his lips to taste of food: 'Come, welcome death!' forever was his cry; 'Lo, here a wretch who wishes but to die!' So still he wail'd, till woe such mastery wan They trembled for his nobler powers of man; They fear'd lest reason's tottering rule should end And to a moping ideot ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... of Holy Thorn, a broad and fair foundation, one of the two set up in the forest by the Countess Isabel, Dowager of March and Bellesme, Countess of Hauterive and Lady of Morgraunt in her own right. Where the Wan river makes a great loop, running east for three miles, and west again for as many before it drives its final surge towards the Southern Sea, there stands Holy Thorn, Church and Convent, watching ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... taken had a high back, and against this she laid her head, as if too weary to support it. Lack of sleep and appetite had paled her florid colour to a sickly hue, and she looked wan and languid as a dying woman. But still he did not pity her, as he must have done had her face been half as beautiful as ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... into the crucible. For more than fifteen years she suffered unceasing and intense bodily pain. Imprisoned in her sick chamber, she fought her long, hard battle. The pain-distorted limbs lost their use, the patient face waxed more wan, and the traces of agony were on it always; the soft, loving eyes were often tear washed. The fires were hot, and they burned on through the long, long years without respite. The mystery of it all was too deep for me; it was too deep for her. ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... by the early fast train to Brackenhurst. All the world knows Brackenhurst, of course, the greenest and leafiest of our southern suburbs. It looked even prettier than its wont just then, that town of villas, in the first fresh tenderness of its wan spring foliage, the first full flush of lilac, laburnum, horse-chestnut, and guelder-rose. The air was heavy with the odour of May and the hum of bees. Philip paused a while at the corner, by the ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... total, lasts about an hour. During all this time the black lunar disc may be watched making its way steadily across the solar face. Notwithstanding the gradual obscuration of the sun, one does not notice much diminution of light until about three-quarters of his disc are covered. Then a wan, unearthly appearance begins to pervade all things, the temperature falls noticeably, and nature seems to halt in expectation of the coming of something unusual. The decreasing portion of sun becomes more and more narrow, ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... ter be wrinkled and lean, But he died wan fine day playin' "Wearin' the green," And they sould the ould horn to a British spalpeen, And it bu'st whin he tried ter blow "God save ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... of our party, and I have never appreciated the young man so well. His originality of perception makes his conversation both lively and in- teresting, and as he talks, his wan and suffering countenance lights up with an intelligent animation. His father seems to become more devoted to him than ever, and I have seen him sit for an hour at a time, with his hand resting on his son's, listening eagerly to his ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... swan-like, stately, and serene, A few light fleecy clouds, the drapery of heav'n, Throw their pale shadows o'er this witching scene, Deep'ning its mystic grandeur—and seem driven Round these all shapeless piles like Time's wan spectres risen ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... conventional long form: none conventional short form: Taiwan local long form: none local short form: T'ai-wan former: Formosa ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... on yon keen cape-point wistfully, Like to some maiden spirit pausing pale, New-wing'd, yet fain to sail Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul Calls o'er the soft horizon — mine thy dole Of shut undaring wings and wan desire — Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire Of kindling expectation; yea, all sights, All sounds, that make this morn — quick flights Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees, Like missives and sweet morning inquiries From green to green, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... gleameth on the bank Across the water wan, As when our blood the mouse-ear drank And ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... drear the world has grown as I wan-der all a-lone, And I hear the breezes sob-bing thro' the pines. I can scarce hold back my tears, when the southern moon ap-pears, For 'tis our humble cottage where it shines; Once again we seem to sit, ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... shadowy gray before her. Yet they were almost within touching distance. Once or twice one of the huge stag-hounds leaped up at her and whined joyously. A thick belt of darkness lay low, and seemed to thin out above to a gray fog, through which a few wan stars showed. It was altogether an unusual departure from the ranch; and Madeline, always susceptible even to ordinary incident that promised well, now found herself thrillingly sensitive to the soft beat of hoofs, the feel of cool, moist air, the dim sight of Stewart's dark figure. The caution, ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... I saw, to them unseen, Wan Ruin stalk behind, with haggard mien, Expecting instant prey;—and with him came The angry Fever, whose insatiate flame Drinks up the pure and purple streams of Life; And every Disease that harbours strife ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... for grief, were I not in great distress for my lord; but as it is, I am in dismay, for he has hardly a limb without a wound." Gawain replies: "This grieves me much. It is perfectly evident from his face, which is all pale and colourless. I could have wept myself when I saw him so pale and wan, but my joy effaced my grief, for at sight of him I felt so glad that I forgot all other pain. Now start and ride along slowly. I shall ride ahead at top-speed to tell the Queen and the King that you are following after ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... the horse's hoofs thudding on the wood of the alley; muffled commands to Charles Eugene: "Hold up, there! Back ... Back up! Whoa!" Then the tinkle of the sleigh-bells. In the silence that followed, the sick woman groaned two or three times in her sleep; Maria watched the wan light stealing into the house and thought of her father's journey, trying to reckon up the distances he ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... opulent rose, the product of a dozen forcing processes—and I will love you a new way. As the flowers say good-by, I will say goodnight. Shall I burn them? No, for they would smoulder. And if I left them here alone, to-morrow they would be wan. There! I have thrown them out wide into that gulf of a street twelve stories below. They will flutter down in the smoky darkness, and fall, like a message from the land of the lotus-eaters, upon a prosy wayfarer. And safe in my heart there lives that gracious picture of my lady as she ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... Smith with a wan smile, "was the detonation of two hundred pounds of T.N.T. When you dig down into the underground cave where we used the cold light apparatus, you will find it in fragments. It was my only child, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... to his lot. They were in New York, on the eve of departure for Newport, and Kate had already benefited by the change. That was nearly all; and it was the middle of July before the second arrived. They were still at Newport, and the improvement in Kate was marked. The wan and sickly look was rapidly passing away—the change, the excitement, the sea-bathing, the gay life, were ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... 'Ye're awn me wan an' nine, fork it oot,' she answered brusquely, and held out her brawny hand, into which Abel Graham reluctantly, as usual, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... hall, and opened the door of a barely furnished room, the walls of which were, however, lined with books. Beside the fire was the one really comfortable piece of furniture in the room, an Ikeley couch, and upon it lay a very wan-looking invalid, who glanced up with a smile of welcome. "Why, Erica, you are home early today. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... VI., was not only an invalid but almost an idiot. It is said that he was wan like an albino, and that the awe men had of him was partly that which is felt for a monster of mental deficiency. His Christian charity was of the kind that borders on anarchism, and the stories about him recall the Christian ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... drink deeply enough from the sweet and bitter cup of wild nature, and loved nature best, and sought it gladly where it was most savage and solitary. But that was long ago. Now, after years of London life, during which I have laboured like many another "to get a wan pale face," with perhaps a wan pale mind to match, that past wildness would prove too potent and sharp a tonic; unadulterated nature would startle and oppress me with its rude desolate aspect, no longer familiar. This softness ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... head was a splendid dome. A few hairs, whiter than fine-drawn silver, fringed the base; over a broad, full-sphered skull the skin was drawn close, and shone in the light with positive brilliance; the temples were deep hollows, from which the forehead beetled like a wrinkled crag; the eyes were wan and dim; the nose was pinched; and all the lower face was muffed in a beard flowing and venerable as Aaron's. Such was Hillel the Babylonian! The line of prophets, long extinct in Israel, was now succeeded by a line of scholars, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... he plodded his way quietly, indifferently almost, therefore, over the plateau below the first range of hills, his instrument-case in hand, drinking from his brandy-flask now and then, to keep down nausea. The night was clear,—a low, wan moon peering from the west, a warm wind from the river drifting the heavy billows of smoke away from the battle-field. He picked his steps with difficulty, unwilling to tread upon even the dead: they lay in heaps here, thrown aside by the men who were removing the wounded. The day was lost: he ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... walk'd the deck, And oh, his brow was wan! Unlike the flush it used to wear When ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... again, as she had said to herself a hundred times, that it was all right and just what she had expected. What else could she have dreamed? That he should ever marry her was beyond possibility; that had been settled long since—there where the tall, dark pines, wan with the shades of evening, cast their haunting shadows across the Silver Fleece and half hid the blood-washed west. After that he would marry some one else, of course; some good and pure woman who would help and ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Charles V of a young man who was committed to prison in 1546 for seducing his girl companion, and while there was in great fear and grief, expecting a death-sentence from the Emperor the next day. When brought before his judge, his face was wan and pale and his hair and beard gray, the change having taken place in the night. His beard was filthy with drivel, and the Emperor, moved by his pitiful condition, pardoned him. There was a clergyman of Nottingham whose daughter at the age of thirteen ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... dun Night her shadowy veil has spread, See want and infamy as forth they come, Lead their wan daughter from her branded home, To woo the stranger for unhallow'd bread. Poor outcast! o'er thy sickly-tinted cheek And half-clad form, what havock want hath made; And the sweet lustre of thine eye doth fade, And all thy soul's sad sorrow seems to speak. O miserable ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... wan't. There wan't nobody in the store but Susie Ellis, that keeps the books there now, and Abner Burgess's boy, that runs errands and waits on folks when everybody else is busy. That was a funny thing, too—that about Leander's not bein' there. Susie said she ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... cheuaulx de querue. For my horses of the plowh. Xpristiene la fylle Xpristine the doughter Se plaint du serrurier, Complayned her of the lokyer, Pour ce quil nye By cause that he denyeth 32 Dun enfant quil gaigna. Of a child that he wan. ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton
... a change had come. The moon had got round, and was fronting her from the west, and she saw that her face was altered, that she had grown pale, as if she too were wan with fear, and from her lofty place espied a coming terror. The light seemed to be dissolving out of her; she was dying—she was going out! And yet everything around looked strangely clear—clearer than ever she had seen anything before: ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... friend? methinks you look not well; Your eyes are sunk, your cheeks look pale and wan: What means this alteration? ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... succession, and Vere decided which was most becoming, and directed little alterations, and said what flowers I was to wear, and how my hair was to be done, just exactly as if I were a new doll which made an amusing plaything. I had to be dressed in her room, too, and she lay watching me with her big wan eyes, issuing directions to Terese, and saying pretty things to me. It was one of her very, very nicest days, and ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... that they still wore paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving. They swathe their heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefully about their cheeks. Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard eyes and faded brows, are not without a certain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts with flattened curls to which they cling,—and yet these ruins are all subordinate to an unspeakable dignity of look ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... "T'wan't for real birds—don' you recomember? It was jus' de name dey was goin' to use fer a li'l 'sociation like!" corrected Sally, as she held the plate of toast within reach of ...
— The Blue Birds' Winter Nest • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... hot and smiling, and the way they dipped into the lemonade was a caution. Then, to a guitar accompaniment, one of them sang a song with a melodramatic story running through it about a poor fellow going to a house and sitting on the door-step wan and weary, and seeing on the doorplate the name of Jasper. Soon Jasper comes out, and though the poverty-stricken one pleads for a bit of bread he's told to go to the workhouse. 'I pays my taxes,' says the heartless Jasper, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... Southwark, and below in the vast hollow of the valley all was still, all seemed abandoned as a desert; no whiff of white steam was blown from the collieries; no black cloud of smoke rolled from the factory chimneys, and they raised their tall stems like a suddenly dismantled forest to a wan, an almost colourless sky. The hills ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... the light or the darkness of our own fate that either gives "greenness to the grass and glory to the flower," or leaves both sickly, wan, and colourless. A little breadth of sunny lawn, the spreading shadow of a single beech, the gentle click of a little garden-gate, the scent of some simple summer roses—how fair these are in your memory because of a voice which then was on your ear, because of eyes that then gazed ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... reason dat de crab walks back'ards? Well, hit's dis away: when de Lord wuz mekin' uv de fishes He meked de diffunt parts en put 'em in piles, de legs in one pile, de fins in anudder, en de haids in anudder. Do' de crab wan't no fish, He meked hit at de same time. Afterwards He put 'em tergedder en breaved inter 'em de bref er life. He stuck all de fishes' haids on, but de crab wuz obstreperous en he say, 'Gib me my haid; I gwine put hit on myse'f.' ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... o' Craigentolly Is a wan and waefu' bride, Singing, O waly! waly! Through the whole country side; And a river to wade For a dying maid, And a ...
— New Collected Rhymes • Andrew Lang
... lo! Thy Edward kneels upon thy verdant grave, And calls upon thy name. The breeze that blows On his wan cheek will soon sweep over him In solemn music a funereal dirge, Wild and most sorrowful. His cheek is pale, The worm that prey'd upon thy youthful bloom It canker'd green on his. Now lost he stands, The ghost ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... that his lips were dry, he poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on the table; the drink was lukewarm and sweetish to the taste. Nauseated, he turned his head away from the glass, and found himself facing his image in the mirror upon the chest of drawers. A wan, aging countenance with dishevelled hair stared back at him. In a self-tormenting mood he allowed the corners of his mouth to droop as if he were playing the part of pantaloon on the stage; disarranged his hair yet more wildly; put out his tongue ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... her, I could not tear myself away from such a sorrowful object of contemplation. She was no longer the little pink and white child I had seen in the Champs-Elysees; she had grown taller and thinner, and her face was wan as a waxen taper. Her languid eyes were encircled with blue rings. And her temples . . . what invisible hand had laid those two ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... same swift, silent motion, sailed toward him, as if blown thither by the gale. Its long, thin arms, with something like a pale flame spiring from the tips of the slender fingers, were stretched out, as in greeting, while the wan smile played over its face; and when he rushed by, unheedingly, it made a futile effort to grasp the swinging arms with which he appeared to buffet back the buffeting gale. Then it glided on by his side, looking earnestly ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... away, when the door opened and Mr. Lee came in silently. A slight shudder went through him, as he came to the coffin and bent over it. What a change had three days made in the man! Ten years would not have taken so much youth and life from him and made him look so old and wan. He looked upon her as a man who looks his last upon what he loved best in the world;—his whole soul ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... through the welkin wide. Swiftly the whole plain filled. Onward they streamed Like harvest-ravaging locusts drifting on In fashion of heavy-brooding rain-clouds o'er Wide plains of earth, an irresistible host Bringing wan famine on the sons of men; So in their might and multitude they went. The city streets were all too strait for them Marching: ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... mammy wan't sassified, 'kase hit mighty hard ter haid off one'r dese yer pryin' wimmins, so she go outside an' ga'rr up some lightwood splinters an' th'ow 'em on de fire, dis-away, all uv a suddint." Here the old woman rose and threw on a handful of lightwood, which blazed up with a great sputtering, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... mystic count of seven: Name the Governors of Heaven.[2] Then in earthen vessel place them, And with dragon-wort encase them, Bleach them in the noonday sun, Till the marrow melt and run, Till the flesh is pale and wan, As a moon-ensilvered cloud, As an unpolluted shroud. Next within their chill embrace The dead man's Awful Candle place; Of murderer's fat must that candle be —You may scoop it beneath the roadside ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One pale as yonder wan and horned moon, With lips of lurid blue, The other glowing like the vital morn, 5 When throned on ocean's wave It breathes over the world: Yet both so ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... to comfort them. "Banshee daren't set fut in the garden, or raise wan skirl of a cry, after all the prayers yez have been sayin'," she would tell them. But when she left them it was only to go to the kitchen fire and pray against the same fear herself. But, apart from this shadow, ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... trussed them for nearly fourscore years—all leg and no breast. And the hundred hints anent effective cleaning and labour-lightening and the things that make for wholesomeness which the young woman was ready to impart or to put into action dropped away into nothingness before that wan, muttering, unheeding presence. Above all, the coveted window corner, that was to be a dainty, cheerful oasis in the gaunt old kitchen, stood now choked and lumbered with a litter of odds and ends that Emma, for all her nominal ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... when the two young ladies had alighted from the carriage before his small book-shop, more dusty, more littered than ever with pamphlets, in which he still was, with his face more wrinkled, more wan and more proud, peering from beneath his broad-brimmed hat, which he did not raise. "How do you know it is here? Who has told ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of actuality, sound an echo from William Morris' prose romances, like "The House of the Wolfings" and "The Sundering Flood." As in the last named, and in Thomas Hardy's "Return of the Native," the reader's imagination is assisted by a map of the Morgraunt forest and the river Wan. Mr. Hewlett has evidently profited, too, by recent romances of various schools: by "Prince Otto," e.g., and "The Prisoner of Zenda," and possibly by others. His Middle Ages are not the Middle Ages ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... a smile on his poor wan face, and I never realised before how good-looking he was. And then I shuddered, for ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... a great spot of light, a spot that spread with startling rapidity, a patch of light that ran, and moved. It flew through the air at terrific speed. It was a pallid light, green and wan and ghostly, that seemed to flow ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... said Scipio, with a wan smile. "Y'see, it was jest a game, an'—an' the boys were rough. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... lungs. If you ever meet him, unless you happen to be arrested by his originality, you will either stuff your fingers into your ears or else take to your heels. Heavens, what a monstrous pipe! Nothing is so little like him as himself. One time he is lean and wan, like a patient in the last stage of consumption: you could count his teeth through his cheeks; you would say he must have passed some days without tasting a morsel, or that he is fresh from La Trappe. A month after, he is stout and sleek as if he had been sitting ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... I patted her wan cheek. "It's just your imagination. The only thing wrong is that my dearest, little mother isn't as well and ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... gray alpaca and got down my hair trunk, for I knew that I must hang onto that apron string no matter where it carried me to. Waitstill Webb come and made up some things I must have, and as preparations went on my pardner's face grew haggard and wan from day to day, and he acted as if he knew not what he wuz doin'. Why, the day I got down my trunk I see him start for the barn with the accordeon in a pan. He sot out to get milk for the calf. He ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... furniture, shabby and scarce, on a bare brick floor, with a grate in which no fire could have been kindled without falling into the middle of the room. He recalls that racking head-ache, that scorching thirst, and those pains in all the bones of a wan, wasted figure lying under a patchwork quilt on a squalid bed. A figure, independent of, and dissevered from himself, yet in some degree identified with his thoughts, his sufferings, and his memories. Somebody nursed the figure, too—he is sure of that—bringing it water, medicines, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not. I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... back! an' I can do a bit av that same meself. ("You can that!" from the outraged Mr. Boone.) But y' had the drawback to be born widout a lazy bone in y'r body, so 'tis a hardship on y'. There is but wan thing that's good in it, as ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... standing in the doorway, the mason laid down his frying-pan and stopped whistling. Without greeting he hastily took up the only chair he had and placed it in the shade of the pepper tree in front of the shack. Adelle sat down with a wan little smile of thanks. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... 'twould have made a preacher peevish to have you land in the pit of his stummick with them sharp hoofs of yourn. But you're only an innercent little sheep, and they wan't no sense in his tryin' ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... calm after the storm, and Phoebe did not wake till the dim wintry dawn was struggling with the yellow candlelight, and a consultation was going on in low tones between Robert and the governess, both wan and haggard in the uncomfortable light, and their words not more cheering than their looks. Bertha had become feverish, passing from restless, talking sleep to startled, painful wakening, and Miss Fennimore wished Dr. Martyn to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more" happened to be a very short time, for not very long afterward, when Annie, her nurse, called, "Come, Fanny, bread and milk is all ready," she ran away off down by the brook and answered, "No, I don't wan' to tum." ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... of her private money in advances of this description, which, up to the time of British interference, was the favorite form of security, and she is now the largest claimant in the country for the repayment of her money. Another, Wan Teh Sapiah, has also claims of a like nature on several families, and both these ladies willingly undertook to accept of liquidation by ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... with sweetness. A room with thin-legged chairs, with cupboards whose lozens gave view to punch-bowls and rummers and silver ladles, a room where the two brothers would convene at night while John was elsewhere, and in a wan candle light sit silent by the hour before cooling spirits, musing on other parlours elsewhere in which spurs had jingled under the board, musing on comrades departed. It was hung around with dark pictures in broad black frames, for ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... blood-gouts mat the green, Yon wheel its reeking points advance; There, by the moon's wan light half seen, Grim ghosts of tombless murderers dance. 'Come, spectres of the guilty dead, With us your goblin morris ply, Come all in festive dance to tread, Ere on the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... search the death-field ere she found her king and lord On the heap that his glaive had fashioned: not yet was his spirit past, Though his hurts were many and grievous, and his life-blood ebbing fast; And glad were his eyes and open as her wan face over him hung, And he spake: "Thou art sick with sorrow, and I would thou wert not so young; Yet as my days passed shall thine pass; and a short while now it seems Since my hand first gripped the sword-hilt, and my ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... splendour of gloriest past The warrior sickening turns. To list to the sound of the wailing blast, As the wan lamp dimly burns: For the daring might of the lion-hearted With Freedom's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... Ma-ni-ka-wan, the maiden, took it upon herself to be his nurse. She brought him water to bathe his face, which was very sore from frostbite, and gave him the choicest morsels from the kettle, and made ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... answered nothing; but when she met Penelope she gave the girl's wan face a sharp look, and began to whimper ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was a very seemilar case," broke in Snecky Hobart, shrilly. "Maist o' ye'll mind 'at Donal was michty plague't wi' a drucken wife. Ay, weel, wan day Bowie's man was carryin' a coffin past Donal's door, and Donal an' the wife was there. Says Donal, 'Put doon yer coffin, my man, an' tell's wha it's for.' The laddie rests the coffin on its end, an' says he, 'It's for Davie Fairbrother's guid-wife.' 'Ay, ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... I presented myself at my friend's office. To my surprise he responded to my ring himself and at once introduced me to his wife, who had come into the city with him that morning. I was warmly greeted but my thin and wan appearance affected them, especially Mrs. K——. I then discovered why I had failed to rouse him in the early hours of the morning when accompanied by the officer from the police station. He did not live in Cologne but in a pretty and quiet little residential ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... with his help and his healing, do that in one instance which his Father is doing every day? I refer now, of course, to the withering of the fig-tree. In the midst of the freshest greenery of summer, you may see the wan branches of the lightning-struck tree. As a poet drawing his pen through syllable or word that mars his clear utterance or musical comment, such is the destruction of the Maker. It is the indrawn sigh of ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... his feelings. If he were bored, dreariness feebly described his appearance; if he were annoyed, his eyes sent out little sparks of fire, and every hair in his moustache bristled on its own account; if he were sad, he lost in five minutes the last remnant of youth, and appeared a wan old man; while if he were pleased, he might have passed as Arthur's brother, so alert and beaming was his demeanour. On the present occasion he was all smiles and bows, and joked elaborately with the little pupils, who were brought up and introduced, when, ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... grey-green world by the fading of innumerable plants. Then the larches begin to put on sallow tints that deepen into orange, burning against the solid blue sky like amber. The frosts are severe at night, and the meadow grass turns dry and wan. The last lilac crocuses die upon the fields. Icicles, hanging from watercourse or mill-wheel, glitter in the noonday sunlight. The wind blows keenly from the north, and now the snow begins to fall and thaw and freeze, and fall and thaw again. The seasons are confused; wonderful days of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... as he was preparing to start, his aunt again sent for him. She came out to him in the sitting-room adjoining her bedroom and there embraced him. Her eyes were red with weeping, and her face wan with care. "Fred," she ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Cheer, the Sullen Month will die, And a young Moon requite us by and by: Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan With age and Fast, is fainting ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... the lady to hear him speak thus cheerfully, and it is certain that she did so. A little wan smile flitted across her face, and then she flushed red, and opened her eyes. Her first glance fell on the penthouse, and she shuddered somewhat. Then she sat up and looked round for us, seeing Bertric for the first time, as he stood at the head ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... what do you care?" She stood in her place before him without speaking. If she had looked at him she might have stricken him blind. When Lady Maria came in, she moved away, and returned to the window. The glow had almost gone; nothing remained but wan blue, white towards the horizon. It was the colour of death; but a single star ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... Not last, Techelles! no, for I shall die. See, where my slave, the ugly monster Death, Shaking and quivering, pale and wan for fear, Stands aiming at me with his murdering dart, Who flies away at every glance I give, And, when I look away, comes stealing on!— Villain, away, and hie thee to the field! I and mine army come to load thy back With souls of thousand mangled ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe
... nights are all past over Of our dreaming, dreams that hover In a mist of fair false things: Night's afloat on wide wan wings." ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... wan light of dawn struggling through her half drawn blinds found Arethusa thus, still wakeful, and still miserably thoughtful; but a little while after she had heard the first milkman's cart rattle past in the street, she fell into a troubled slumber of vague, ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... and its own special significance. And yet the yellow of the Magdalen's dress, the deep green of the coat making ruddier the embrowned flesh of sturdy Joseph of Arimathea, the rich shot crimson of Nicodemus's garment, relieved with green and brown, the chilling white of the cloth which supports the wan limbs of Christ, the blue of the Virgin's robe, combine less to produce the impression of great pictorial magnificence than to heighten that of solemn pathos, ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... git right back in thar, an' keep still. It was just as that whole caboodle come tearin' up this las' time, sir. It wan't no safe place fer a girl whar you was. Ragan he promised to tell you, only he got hit 'fore the fracas was done. That's why Foster chirked up, an' ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... is Afric but the home Of burning Phlegethon? What the low beach and silent gloom, And chilling mists of that dull river, Along whose bank the thin ghosts shiver, The thin, wan ghosts that once were men, But Tauris, isle of moor and fen; Or, dimly traced by seaman's ken, The ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... also howe this conquerour myghty Upon a season played at the Chesse With one of his knyghtes which wan ynally Of hym great golde treasoure and rychesse And hym ouercame, but in a furyousnes And lade with wyne, this conquerour vp brayde And to his knyght in wrath ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... of glee, the triumphs, the rivalries, the defeats, the friendships, are recalled with a fluttering of the heart that pride cannot wholly subdue. You step upon the chapel-porch in the quiet of the night as you would step on the graves of friends. You pace back and forth in the wan moonlight, dreaming of that dim life which opens wide and long from the morrow. The width and length oppress you: they crush down your struggling self-consciousness like Titans dealing with Pygmies. A single piercing thought ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... stream of Guadalquiver, Glowing, waving as they hung Mid fragrant blossoms ever young, In gardens of romantic Spain,— Lovely land, and rich in vain! Blest by nature's bounteous hand, Cursed with priests and Ferdinand! Lemons, pale as Melancholy, Or yellow russets, wan and holy. Be their number twice fifteen, Mystic number, well I ween, As all must know, who aught can tell Of sacred lore or glamour spell; Strip them of their gaudy hides, Saffron garb of Pagan ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various
... sitting far back in the shadows of the church wearing such a look of sadness that she frightened me. It was not goodness but sorrow that had spiritualised her face. And to me she seemed a wan prisoner looking through the windows of her cell, despairing, like one who already knows his death sentence. "What if after all I am mistaken," I thought, "and there really is occasion for such grief as that!" I could think of nothing but that white mystery ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... The boy furthermore brought forth a drinking-horn, and said, "No cuckold can drink from that horn without spilling the liquor." Only Cradock succeeded, and "he wan the golden can."—Percy, Reliques ("Boy and the Mantle," III. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... she thought how Maxwell would laugh when she told him the fear of being spoken to had kept her from suicide; and she sat waiting for him to come with such an inward haggardness that she was astonished, at sight of herself in the glass, to find that she wan looking very much as usual. Maxwell certainly noticed no difference when he came in and flung himself wearily on the lounge, and made no attempt to break the silence of their meeting; they had kissed, of course, but ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... wounded young Americans whose heroism he has sung in deathless numbers. There were three rows of cots, and each cot bore its man. When he appeared, in passing along, there was a smile of affection and welcome on every face, however wan, and his presence seemed to light up the place as it might be lighted by the presence of the God of Love. From cot to cot they called him, often in tremulous tones or in whispers; they embraced him; they touched his hand; they gazed at him. To one he gave a few words of cheer; for another ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... She sat quite still beside him, her hands clasped childlike in her lap, listening with parted lips. The dusk deepened, and the golden moon hung over the surrounding wall and flooded the garden in wan hoary light. The pool lay a lake of silver in a black fringe of trees. The night flowers breathed forth drowsy perfume, making heavy the summer air. Nicanor's voice rolled on, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... river side became the scene of immense activity. Ambulances crowded along the banks of the river, laden with sick and wounded, while those from the hospitals able to walk, tottered along with trembling steps, their wan faces and sunken eyes telling their story of suffering. Transports were in waiting for these, and were rapidly filled with their freight of suffering humanity. Everything not movable was ordered to be destroyed. Tents were struck and taken to the pickets who had ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... with her as I pleased. I observed the door of a small out-house a-jar. I pushed it open; and, with some hay strewed about, I formed a couch for her, placing her exhausted frame on it, and covering her with my cloak. I feared to leave her, she looked so wan and faint—but in a moment she re-acquired animation, and, with that, fear; and again she implored me not to delay. To call up the people of the inn, and obtain a conveyance and horses, even though I harnessed them myself, was the work of many minutes; minutes, each freighted with the weight ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... ringtailed roarer from Big Sandy River; I can outrun, outjump, and outfight any man in Kentucky. They telled me in Danville, that this 'ere lawyer was comin down to give you a lickin. Now I hadn't nothin agin that, only he wan't a goin to give you fair play, so I came here to see you out, and now if you'll only say the word, we can flog him and his mates, in the twinkling of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... a tender grief, About an English ruin clings— What time the wan autumnal leaf Faints, after ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... took Upon his love, which she had known so long; And that celestial face, that mouth, which he So long had coveted, which had, for years, The burden been of all his dreams and sighs, Close bringing unto his, so sad and wan, Discolored by his mortal agony, Kiss after kiss, all goodness, with a look Of deep compassion, on the trembling lips Of the ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... before the two men, a wan smile straying from one to the other, exhausted by her suppressed emotions. Suddenly, without a word, she held out her hand to Graydon. In her deepest soul, she loved this manly, strong-hearted young fellow. She knew, after all, he was worthy of the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... recent brutal treatment. They were sad spectacles to behold, truly, and would have moved to pity any hearts less obdurate than those by which they were surrounded. Their faces bore those expressions of dejection and wan despair, which may sometimes be perceived in the look of a criminal, when, loth to die, he is assured all hope of pardon is past. Not that either Younker or Reynolds felt criminal, or feared death in its ordinary way; but there were a thousand things to harass their minds, ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... look at the wan face only dimly visible in that prison-light, for the poor little man shrank back as he recognized the form of ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... no true lover if he doesn't,' replied her father, with a wan smile. 'Now, run away, my love, I am busy. To-morrow we shall settle the question ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... his return to the capital. And being hungry certainly made pathetic his prediction that some among those present would one day wear the medal for twenty-five years of faithful service to the Empire. Being hungry took the poet-hero's glow out of his wan cheek as he declared again that he, a Hapsburg, would never desert, for even then he heard Imperialist platoons shooting recaptured deserters. Or he thought of the wounded left to die on the grassy plain and lying there unburied. No, all the heart was being taken out of these things, for Marquez ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... answer for your character (as I believe I can)," she went on with a wan, almost wistful smile, "he is ready to make ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... command. To whom thir Chief Gabriel from the Front thus calld aloud. O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet Hasting this way, and now by glimps discerne Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade, And with them comes a third of Regal port, But faded splendor wan; who by his gate 870 And fierce demeanour seems the Prince of Hell, Not likely to part hence without contest; Stand firm, for in his look defiance lours. He scarce had ended, when those two approachd And brief related whom they brought, wher found, How busied, in what form and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... him but sin and shame to throw away that noble sword, and he hid it away again, and returned, and told the king he had done his commandment. "What sawest thou there?" said the king. "Sir," he said, "I saw nothing but waters deep and waves wan." "Ah, traitor untrue!" said King Arthur, "now hast thou betrayed me twice. And yet thou art named a noble knight, and hast been lief and dear to me. But now go again, and do as I bid thee, for thy long tarrying putteth me in jeopardy of my life." Then Sir Bedivere went to the sword, and lightly ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... wrecked or captured by the Spaniards. Under the supposition that she had been taken, Captain Anson sent in a Spanish officer, one of his many prisoners, and a boat manned by Spaniards, to offer an exchange of prisoners. Some time after she had gone the missing boat appeared, the wan countenances of her crew showing the ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... we can pass by mines, and factories, and by dungeons darker and fouler still, in the lanes and alleys of our great towns and cities, where thousands and tens of thousands of starving men, and wan women, and children grown old before their youth, sit toiling and pining in Mammon's prison-house, in worse than Egyptian bondage, to earn such pay as just keeps the broken heart within the worn-out body;—ay, we can go through our great cities, ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... dat was you. Marse Doctor, 'n I follered yer, I want to tell yer:—Mistress 'splained all 'bout dat 'fore she died. Dey wan't nothin' wrong. Her an' her ma was 'feared to let old Master know she hed run 'way an' married Marse Henry. He said he wan't gwine ter will her nary cent. So mistess and her sister, Miss Ellen, arter while, dey fotch her up to de springs. Den ole master he died sudden like, an' Marse Henry, he ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... little by little dispersed. It was about midnight when we left. The stars were still buried in mist; the moon which was almost at the edge of the horizon, lit up the night with a sort of wan daylight. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... and they swooped down with a great cawing into the shining snow, which they filled curiously with patches of black, and in which they kept rummaging obstinately. A young fellow went to see what they were doing, and discovered the body of the blind man, already half devoured, mangled. His wan eyes had disappeared, pecked out by the long ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... said, and threw his spear, but by design, Err'd from the man. The polish'd weapon swift O'er-glancing his right shoulder, in the soil 440 Stood fixt, beyond him. Terrified he stood, Stammering, and sounding through his lips the clash Of chattering teeth, with visage deadly wan. They panting rush'd on him, and both his hands Seized fast; he wept, and suppliant them bespake. 445 Take me alive, and I will pay the price Of my redemption. I have gold at home, Brass also, and bright steel, and when report Of my captivity within your fleet Shall ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the old days had pitilessly turned down their thumbs as a signal for the taking of human life! Although the moon was brilliant and flooded the antique amphitheatre with argentine light, the guides carried torches, which served to spread a flickering and wan illumination through the dark recesses of the cavernous vomitariums, now the refuge of bats, owls, goats ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... The wan light of the clouded morning retired slowly from the courtyard, from the clearings, from the river, as if it had gone unwillingly to hide in the enigmatical solitudes of the gloomy and silent forests. The clouds over their heads thickened into ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... "Some time 'nother fella tchausey belonga Jimmy. He wan make Jimmy shout. Jimmy no wan shout for that boy. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... table were equally oppressive, and Ida immediately felt that she was the cause of the restraint. She was about to leave the table in order to relieve them of her presence, when Miss Burton unexpectedly entered and took her chair, which hitherto had been vacant. She was a little pale and wan, but this only made her look the more interesting, and both Stanton and Van Berg welcomed her as they would the sunshine after a dreary storm. Even Mrs. Mayhew seemed to find a wonderful relief in her coming, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe |
