"Wistful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shadow across the floor. The professor, with folded arms, sat alert and expectant. Burton, pale and shrunken with the labors of the last ten days, looked out of his burning eyes at the girl. For a single moment she had raised her head, had met his fierce inquiry with a certain wistful pathos, puzzling, an incomplete sentiment. Now she, too, was sitting as though in an attitude of waiting. Burton felt his heart suddenly leap. What might lie beyond the wall was of no account. He was a man with only a few brief months to live, as he had come ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... exact location, because its appearance is, as a rule, so very meteoric—but somewhere there is a dimple. Now, if ever there was an arrant traitor in this world it is that dimple; for let her expression be ever so guileless, let her wistful eyes be raised with a look of tears in their blue depths, despite herself that dimple will spring into life and undo it all in a moment. So it was now, even as I watched it quivered round her lips, and feeling herself betrayed, the frown vanished altogether and she smiled. "And ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... so," the young guide answered with a wistful smile. "It is so long since I have had a breath of real air that I have almost forgotten ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... moment that he was a man with the toils of the law closing upon him, forgot that his success and even his liberty were at stake. He saw only a girl with the hunger of love in her wistful eyes, and knew that it lay in his power to bring back the laughter and the light ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... trying to help another child. She had heard of the children's Saviour, and I think she would have come to Him, but they suffered her not. She was, when I first saw her, sweet and innocent, with eyes full of light, great glancing, dancing eyes, which grew wistful for a moment sometimes, and then filled with a laugh again. She told me her mother lived very near, and asked me to come and see her; so ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... door, which opened on an outer gallery surrounding a court-yard; and an intensely shabby little man looked in, to inquire if the gentleman would have a Cicerone to show the town. His face was so very wistful and anxious, in the half-opened doorway, and there was so much poverty expressed in his faded suit and little pinched hat, and in the thread-bare worsted glove with which he held it—not expressed the less, because these were evidently his genteel clothes, hastily slipped ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... distances between her and the horizon, in the freedom of his wandering choice. His low-pitched exclamation of surprise was vibrant with appreciation of the picture she made, and he stood quite still in a second's wistful silence, waiting on her first word after the lapse of the many days since he had brought a look of horror ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... those who are unused to the confinement of a vessel, Mabel cast wistful eyes towards the shore; nor was it long before she expressed a wish that it were possible to land. The Pathfinder was near her at the time, and he assured her that nothing would be easier, as they had a bark canoe on deck, which was the best possible mode of conveyance ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... against this wall—washing vainly against it with a wistful wailing swish—seems to be thrown back on itself, and then to hasten away on either side, where lies the moist fog of a ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... its hardness. It was almost wistful. The change of tone was so marked that it struck Horace. ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... by the table, touching objects with the tips of her gloved fingers, as if lovingly and sadly; at length she seated herself in Wilfrid's chair and gazed about the room with languid, wistful eyes. Her bosom heaved; once or twice a sigh trembled to all but a sob. She lost herself in reverie. Then the clock near her chimed silverly half-past eleven. Beatrice drew a deep breath, rose slowly, and ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... I ha d ever known. But one thing made me wistful and wishful. I wanted my boy to be there with us. I wished he had seen how they had greeted his Dad. Nothing pleased him more than an honor that came to me. And here was an honor indeed—a reception the like of which I had ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... for the winder, and by the magic of his dexterous hands, had found the clue to the maze, so that all was proceeding well, though slowly, when the study door opened, and Harry's voice was heard in a last good night to his father. Mary's eyes looked wistful, and one misdirection of her winder tightened ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... going over to the bed bent and kissed the tired, wistful face. Patricia had a fashion of exciting sympathy at the wrong time, in a way that was perilous to discipline. "For this time, then, Patricia," she said. "Now I ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... majestic stillness, deeper than thought, pervaded the place. At the clearing just within this deeper wood Agatha paused, sat down on a stone and took Danny's head in her lap. The dog looked up into her face with the wistful, melancholy gaze of ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... father had written a letter to say that, if it could possibly be managed, he should pass it with them. It need not be told what joyful news this was to them all. It was not unmingled joy to them all, however. Sophy had some anxieties, which she did her best to hide; but they showed in the wistful watching of her mother's looks, and in her gentle efforts to chase all clouds from her face. As for Mrs Morely, she had suffered so many disappointments that she hardly dared to hope now. And yet her hopes were stronger than her fears this time, and she and her little daughter helped and encouraged ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... exulting in his apparent victory, said many sneering and savage things, and clattered his knife truculently on his plate. Sproul merely looked at him with that wistful preoccupation ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... silently faced each other it seemed for a moment that each instinctively recognized this kinship. Then into the dark eyes of the stranger—as when he had watched the cowboy at the Burnt Ranch—there came that look of wistful ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... only thing it cannot cross. But I must go!" She held out her hand with half-shy friendliness. "Thank you for your niceness to me." Her eyes grew suddenly wistful. "Really, though, I don't think I should stay there if I were ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... from her side. Precisely one calendar month had now elapsed since he had buried his face in her prune bonnet strings at Victoria Station, and there seemed no prospect of his return. He wrote to her, indeed, frequently, and his letters were full of wistful regret and longing to be once more safe in the old homestead in Belgrave Square, drinking barley water, and pasting Romeike & Curtice notices into the new album which lay, gaping for him, upon the table of his sanctum. But he did not come; nay, more, ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... three, then four, and a little line of tension deepened around Jane Brown's mouth. Perhaps it has not been mentioned that she had a fighting nose, short and straight, and a wistful mouth. For Johnny Fraser was still lying ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... count," replied Raoul, "I will repeat to you. Listen to me. I said, 'You are regarding with wistful feelings, and most injurious desire, the sister of your prince,—her to whom you are not affianced, who is not, who can never be anything to you; you are outraging those who, like ourselves, have come to seek a young lady to escort her ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... The valley lies in verdant amplitude, Great mountains—like old merchants—o'er it brood— And as a lovely woman languidly Trailing her long blue robes, so comes the sea To touch it softly in a wistful mood . . . The sky forgets her starry multitude, Seeing how fair mere earthly ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... with her beautiful wistful eyes, as she had looked when she gave me the amber roses in ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... wistful little sigh). Yes; he took something from me. Not very much, I think. But just—something. (She takes his arm, leads him to the sofa, and says affectionately) And now tell me all that you've been ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... to twist his head around frequently. At first Thad thought he was developing a new eagerness to discover signs of game; but then he soon saw that the wistful expression on the other's face was brought about ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... with a faint, wistful smile upon the corners of his lips, looking around at all of them. His face had become like the face of a child, eager for sympathy ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... ceased speculating, dismissed the mayor, the chemist, and the skull from my mind, and smoked pensively, watching the sun low dipping in the western ocean. As the twilight fell for a moment over ocean and moorland, a wistful, restless happiness filled my heart, the happiness that all men know—all men who ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... unselfish conduct, and on the gratitude derived both from favours conferred and from those to come.[8] There may then at all events be some hope that the Egyptian will hesitate before he throws in his lot with any future Arabi The Berberine dweller on the banks of the Nile may, perhaps, cast no wistful glances back to the time when, albeit he or his progenitors were oppressed, the oppression came from the hand of a co-religionist. Even the Central African savage may eventually learn to chant a hymn in honour of Astraea Redux, as represented by the British ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... 'a' been satisfied just to go home and set down and eat my supper, but never mind," sighed Nate in wistful fashion. "Folks is cur'ous about such things. Just because a man don't git sent up for what he didn't do can't make a hero outen him, as I see. But it's nice of you all to care." He looked at Joyce, sitting opposite with Dalton, he and Lucy having been given the back ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... hands on her apron, came briskly out upon the stoop. Some cheerful commonplace was on her tongue, but a glance at Alice's wistful face kept it back. She passed an arm around her waist instead, and stood in silence, looking ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... the blue ocean slumbered below their feet, the gentle ripples which played over it sparkling in the bright rays of the sun. A large vessel, with a wide spread of canvas, was gliding majestically by on her way down channel. Ned gazed at her with a wistful eye. ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston
... for the reception of special cases or refractory patients. There, propped up on her pillows, her arm bandaged and supported by a cushion, lay a young girl with fair braided hair and the sweetest face I had ever seen out of a picture. Something in the childish and wistful look of her deep eyes and serious mouth reminded me strangely of Pepin; it was Pepin's plaintive expression refined and intensified by spiritual influence, a look such as one might imagine on the face of some young ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... to the shore pell-mell and some hurried to the barn for the only means of rescue—an old disused skiff and a leaky, discarded canoe. Others gazed in wistful silence out upon the ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... those who have wandered farthest from its beauty and purity. Men and women, with faces seemingly hardened and grown rigid under the impress of vice, that but too correctly reveal the coarse and brutal nature within, often become wistful and tender over some simple flower or luscious fruit that recalls earlier and happier days. These are gifts which offend no prejudices, and inevitably suggest that which is good, sweet, wholesome and pure. For a moment, at ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... footsteps began to rush along the narrow street outside. Anthony ran to the window and called to know what was the matter; but no one paid any attention to him; and he presently sat down again in despair, and with one or two wistful looks. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... girl's face grew sadder and whiter, and her eyes had in them always an expectant, wistful look, as if waiting for some one or something, which would lift from her the dark cloud under which she was laboring. Jake, who had returned from Richmond, suffered nearly as much as she did. His pride in his family—such as the family ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... then slowed her pace with a look over her shoulder after she got by. In this her eyes met his, and she blushed and hurried on; but not so soon that he had not time to see she had a thin face of a pathetic prettiness, gentle brown eyes with wistful brows, under ordinary brown hair. She was rather little, and was dressed with a sort of unaccented propriety, which was as far from distinction ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... grief-stricken, broken. He was inclined to reproach himself because he was not. Of course there was a sadness about it, a regret that the wonder of those days of love and youth had passed. But the sorrow was not bitter, the regret was but a wistful longing, the sweet, lingering fragrance of a memory, that was all. Toward her, Madeline, he felt—and it surprised him, too, to find that he felt—not the slightest trace of resentment. And more surprising still he felt none toward Blanchard. He had meant what he said in his letter, he ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... black-and-white dog! You can see him any day, Trotting meekly from street to street: He almost seems to say, As he looks in your face with wistful eyes, "I don't mean ...
— The Nursery, March 1878, Vol. XXIII. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... which he had sought to canvass his spiritual needs. His demand of a sign from the heavens as evidence of the existence of the God of revelation, as assurance of the awakening of divine grace in the human heart, as actual proof that wistful mortality is inherently endowed with immortality, had electrified this symposium. Though it was fashionable, so to speak, in this remote cove among the Great Smoky Mountains, to be repentant in rhetorical involutions and a self-accuser in finespun interpretations of sin, doubt, or more ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... to make for its own eyrie, and indeed military deserters, and all hunted outcast creatures, turn as if by instinct in the direction of their birthland,—fly first, in this extremity, towards his native Entepfuhl; but reflecting that there no help awaits him, take but one wistful look from the distance, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... smelt excellent; the Cat couldn't help a wistful look. She was only come, she said, to pay her respects to ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... at the water, and I saw in his face the peculiarly wistful expression that so often accompanies thoughts which are both elusive and far away. The index finger of his right hand was slightly raised, indicating a subconscious impulse to point upward. Slowly turning back to us, he said in a ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... they had attended together. There was also a graceful, mincing white wolfhound which, contrary to the accepted notion of invalids' faithful hounds, didn't seem to care for his master's darkened sick-room at all, but followed the one sunny spot in Mrs. Harrington's room with a wistful persistence. It was such a small spot for such a long wolfhound—that was the principal thing which impressed itself on Phyllis's ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... on for a few minutes, past the end of Red Lane, though Stephen cast a wistful glance up it, and gave an impatient jerk to the load upon his shoulders. Tim had been walking beside him in silent reflection; but at last he ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... tired, worn man, unfashionably dressed, eager-eyed and wistful. Instead, the tall fellow who came forth was attired in the most modern English garments; he was brown, fresh-faced, keen-eyed and prosperous looking. The same old Harry Green grown stronger, handsomer, more polished. His black eyes were sweeping the street anxiously as if in search of some ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Court the infamy was a thing accomplished—all of it. But I gathered it, and gathering it, thanked Heaven I had been spared the pain and misery of witnessing it, which must have been more than ever I could have endured. Yet when I saw you, when I watched you—your wistful beauty, your incomparable grace—there was a time when the thought to murder stirred darkly in my mind that I might at ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... odd and pleasant sight, if any one had stopped to think of it—the old man with his bright, wistful eyes, his tool box on his shoulder, and his three companions, walking home together. Demure Katherine, dainty Rosalind, saucy Belle,—all as merry as merry could be,—and Curly Q. running in and out among them in ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... felt as if I should immensely like to glide, for a long summer-day through the streets and between the old stone-walls,—unseen come and unheard go—perhaps by some miracle, I shall do so—and look up at Villa Brichieri as Arnold's Gypsy-Scholar gave one wistful look at "the line of festal light in Christ Church Hall," before he went to sleep in some forgotten grange. . . . I am so glad I can be comfortable in your comfort. I fancy exactly how you feel and ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... sorry I didn't finish up those dishes. Let them go till I return. I wish you would, dad, and come along with me." His voice had a wistful note ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... plaid. Of that same breed of men, of tall and compact mould and hardy sinew, was Robert Burns; nor is it possible to imagine any thing more animated than the appearance of those stalwart sons of the soil, as they lingered for a moment before the platform, and looked with wistful eyes at the sons of the Poet, if haply they might trace in their lineaments some resemblance to the features of him whom, from their infancy, they had learned to love. Then came the Freemasons, and King Crispin with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... one look at the wistful eyes of the father, as Mr. Page stood by the head of the cot, resting one hand on his supposed ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... on the train back to London that I got a glimpse of the real Lloyd George. What Roosevelt would have called "a bully day" had left its impress upon the little man. His long grey hair hung matted over a wilted collar: there was a wistful sort of weariness in his eyes. He sank into a big chair and looked for a long time in silence at the flying landscape. Then suddenly he aroused himself and began to talk. Like many men of his type whom you go to interview he ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... were otherwise. But so it shall be with all of us. So it cannot but be. Not until the day shall come when this wistful, blundering church of ours, loved with exceeding great and bitter love, with all her proud and solitary towers, shall turn to the voices of life sounding beneath her belfries in the street, shall she be worshipful; not until the love of ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... she sighed heavily, and looked in his face with an air of wistful longing, and she knit her brows as though she were puzzled. But at last, shaking her head, ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... didn't; and I was sorry, for I thought I deserved a smile. And he has a nice one, with even white teeth in it, and a wistful sort of look in his eyes at the same time: a ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... to the western heavens, which were bathed in a glow of golden light. They had reached the end of the wood; a wide stretch of country lay before them. How still and quiet it was! even the birds' twitterings had ceased. Bessie's eyes grew soft and wistful; the sunset glories had reminded her of Hatty in ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Who is there—" I stopped. My eyes met Pilar's, and she blushed, stammering as she hurried bravely on. "The greatest nonsense, of course. But—but—oh, don't you remember how she looked that evening at Manzanares when we saw her last? So wistful, as if there were something on her mind she mustn't tell? I caught her looking at me once or twice as if she were wondering—they must have begun, even then, to upset her mind, poor, lonely child; but the worst hadn't happened; she was only ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... day the little notches and the longer ones reached farther and farther along the window-sill, until Ward began to foresee the time when he must start a new row. Day by day his cheek-bones grew more clearly defined, his eyes bigger and more wistful. Day by day his knuckles stood up sharper when he closed his hands, and day by day Nature worked upon his ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Lee," Anette spoke in his place; "you will realize that at once. She's like a—a wistful ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... in the doorway, casting a wistful, longing look at him, then, with a little sigh, walked softly to the other side of the fire-place, and seated herself in her ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... there by a sharp green of growing things. There was something of sadness in the scene, and again I thought of Hathor as the "Lady of the Underworld," some deep-eyed being, with a pale brow, hair like the night, and yearning, wistful hands stretched out in supplication. There was a hush upon this place. The loud and vehement cry of the shadoof-man died away. The sakieh droned in my ears no more like distant Sicilian pipes playing at Natale. I felt a breath from the desert. And, indeed, the desert was near—that realistic desert ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... all sea-sick—well, even so, in the summer sparkle, the long low fall of the waves is sad. But how much more on a winter night, when the moon is away below the sea, and weary waters roll unseen from a vast profundity of gloom, fall unreckoned, and are no more than a wistful moan, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... My wistful soul in hope and steadfastness I know not—all that golden-memoried past So sudden wonderful, when ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... cleated sheet and tugging tiller, and hear the soft hissing song of the water on the rail. And 'my day of mercy' is not complete till I have seen some old boat, her seafaring done, heeled over on the beach or amid the fragrant sedges, a mute and wistful witness to the romance of the deep, the blue and restless deep where man has adventured in craft his hands have made since the earliest sun of history, and whereon he will adventure, ardently and insecure, till the last syllable ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... coveted, but the satiating aliment of beauty, fresh as if God that hour had pronounced them good, and set his sign-manual upon each delicate tremulous petal, that might have been sapphire, save for its wistful translucence. And on the teapoy in the window stood two dainty baskets of clean willow, in which we had that day brought home chestnuts from the wood;—mine was full of nuts, but they were small and angular and worm-eaten, as the fruitage of a wet season might well be; hers scantily freighted, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... see her, and met her with a blushing timidity, and piteous, wistful looks, not easy to misunderstand nor ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... fn," said he, "Cuando saldr?" "When shall I leave this place?" "Very soon," said the director. "You may get your trunks ready." He bowed and appeared satisfied, but continued standing in the same place, his arms folded, and with the same wistful gaze as before. The director told us that the two great causes of madness here are love and drinking, (mental and physical intoxication); that the insanity caused by the former is almost invariably incurable, whereas ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... wistful expression," suggested Judithe. "I am glad you told me of it, for her melancholy had an almost mesmeric effect on me—and ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... pardon! I am so sorry, but I never thought that you were coming, or else I would have stayed at home. I am just out for a little walk." His wistful eyes shone. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... hands that lay on the coverlet, and the face of the dying woman was not more ghastly than the one which bent over her. As Dr. Grey approached, the mistress of the house rose, and put out her hands towards him, with a wistful, pleading, childish manner, that touched ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... her saddle, looking away over La Palma de la Mano de Dios. It was to this point that Barbara so often came, and as she looked now over the miles and miles of that silent, dreadful land her face grew sad and wistful and in her eyes there was an expression that the Seer sometimes said made ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... not bound and not in the least frightened, was the dazzlingly-white lamb, decked like the ewe with knots of ribbon and wearing about its neck a red collar brilliant to behold. Now and then the ewe would turn to look at it, and in response to one of those wistful maternal glances the little creature stood up shakily on its unduly long legs and gave an anxious baa! But when a shepherd bent over and stroked it gently, it was reassured; lying down contentedly again in its queer little car of triumph, and thereafter ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... very hungry, in spite of his possession of an "iron will." He kept turning a wistful eye toward the fire where the frightened black cook was hustling coffee and ham and eggs for his benefit. And indeed, there was such an appetizing odor in the air that several times Mr. Smithson raised his head and looked longingly over the bushes ...
— The Outdoor Chums - The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club • Captain Quincy Allen
... sensitive to female charm—therefore Bertha, who would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes—wistful when in repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending to business, or smiling as she sped her ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... depths below, Where plain and foothills, meet, And smiles a wistful smile to know The world is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... breathe a wistful hollow sigh. Very ancient and dim he seemed as he stood beside me. But I did not turn to look upon him. I had no need to. I knew his form, in the inner and clearer sight of things, as well as every human being ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... beauty. Sheila had a strange, arresting sort of jaw, a trifle over-accentuated and out of drawing. Her eyes were long, flattened, narrow, the color of bubbles filled with smoke, of a surface brilliance and an inner mistiness—indescribable eyes, clear, very melting, wistful and beautiful under sooty lashes ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... Jane encouraged him. Far from it, she was more obdurate than ever with an ocean between them. But his atom of determination had grown to a purpose. His face was thinner and his eyes were of a deeper, more wistful grey; they were full of longing for the girl across the sea, and of pity and yearning for the man back there in ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... drill, inculcate, instil, indoctrinate. Thoughtful, contemplative, meditative, reflective, pensive, wistful. Tire, weary, fatigue, exhaust, jade, fag. Tool, implement, instrument, utensil. Trifle, dally, dawdle, potter. Try, endeavor, essay, attempt. Trust, confidence, reliance, assurance, faith. Turn, revolve, rotate, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... starts (allegro agitato) in fearsome agitation on quick nervous throb of melody; below, violas sing a soothing answer; there is a clear dialogue of wistful lovers. ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... grizzled hair coming out from under a red woolen nightcap, and his shoulders wrapped in an old thread-bare blue dressing-gown which I had often seen him in. His face looked pale and drawn, and there was a wistful disappointed look about the eyes. I was so taken aback I could not speak, but lay watching him. He looked full at my face once or twice, but didn't seem to recognise me; and, just as I was getting back my tongue and going to speak, he said slowly: "Where's Tom? this is his hammock. ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... a handsome, gentle face of the peasant type, a light, pointed beard, great wistful eyes, and a mass of curly black hair. He was shockingly young for such a sacrifice, and looked more like a Neapolitan than a Cuban. You could imagine him sitting on the quay at Naples or Genoa lolling in the sun and showing his white teeth when he laughed. ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... with purple hung with roses and tall sweet lilies—such as the nightingale would summon for us with her wail— (surely only unhappiness could thrill such a rich madrigal!) not she, the nightingale can fill our souls with such a wistful joy ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... little wagging tail; I miss the plaintive, pleading wail; I miss the wistful, loving glance; I miss the ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... the modern Jacques Bonhomme's shudder at the old ruined French donjon or bastille, haunts, generations afterwards, the ruins of those "labyrinths" of stone, where the old tyrants had their pleasures. For it is a mistake to suppose that that wistful sense of eeriness in ruined buildings, to which most of us are susceptible, is an exclusively modern feeling. The name Cyclopean, attached to those desolate remains of buildings which were older than Greek history itself, attests their romantic influence over ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... you were," she said with a little wistful note in her voice that neither of them knew was there. "But never mind; I want to talk now about what we are both to do next. If you are really feeling as badly as you say about my being sick, I don't suppose you mind how long I take to get well. I'm afraid it will ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... Vandykish nose, with the curly ears, which fell like a well-dressed peruke on each side of his face, gave him an air of disinherited royalty. But he was in truth a mongrel, living on the fat of the land; who, from the day that this wistful dignity had won the schoolmaster's heart, had never known a care, wanted a meal, or had any thing whatever demanded of him but to sit comfortably at home and watch with a broken-hearted countenance for the schoolmaster's return ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... coffee, and a minute later Reuben Merryweather paused on the threshold to shake off a sprinkling of bran from his hair and beard. He was a bent, mild looking old man, with a wooden leg which made a stumping noise when he walked, and a pair of wistful brown eyes, like those of an aged hound that has been worn out by hard service. Past seventy now, his youth had been trained to a different civilization, and there was a touching gentleness in his face, as if he expressed still the mental attitude of a class which had existed merely as ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... would be protruded dozens of grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide expanse of country unfolded from their airy height. Ah! there was much misery in those casernes; and from those roofs, doubtless, many a wistful look was turned in the direction of lovely France. Much had the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said—of England, in general so kind and bountiful. Rations of ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... he whined and licked my face as I came alongside him, his wistful eyes saying as plainly as dog could speak, "Thank God, Tom, you've come to help me," or something to ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... stop his work when the great red dying sun began to fade into the west and his round eyes would grow wistful as he looked out over the great city that stretched in towering minarets and lofty spires of purest crystal blue for miles on every side. A fairy city of rarest hue and beauty. A city for the Gods and the Gods were dead. Kiron felt, at such times, the great loneliness that ...
— The Ultimate Experiment • Thornton DeKy
... door, and stood with heir hands by her side. There was something wistful, almost ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... gathering. For see! The peacocks gaze and lift their fans on high; The swans forget their purpose to depart; The untimely storm afflicts the blackened sky, And the wistful lover's heart. 1 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... jaw contrasting with the delicacy of her other features. Her eyes are large and blue, confident in their compelling candour and sweetness; her lips, full and red, half-open over strong, even teeth, droop at the corners into an expression of wistful sadness; her clear complexion is unnaturally striking in its contrasting colours, rose and white; her figure is slight and undeveloped. She wears a plain black dress with a bit of white at the neck and wrists. She stands looking appealingly at Nicholls, who avoids her glance. Her eyes ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... more." The pride of the donor sounded in my voice; then I looked at the poor, old, tired, wistful face, and had a brilliant idea. "General, shall we go hunting—you and I? I'll push and you'll steer, and we'll both look, and if it's a man's present, it's yours, and if it's a woman's, it's mine, and if it's neutral, we'll toss! ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... these days was Mr. Clough, who has many undergraduate qualities. But his peculiar wistful scepticism in religion had then no influence on such of us as were still happily in the ages of faith. Anything like doubt comes less of reading, perhaps, than of the sudden necessity which, in almost every life, puts belief on her trial, and cries for an examination ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... followed Mrs. Blyth's fingers eagerly to the last letter they formed; then rose softly to her face with the same wistful questioning look which they had assumed before Valentine, years and years ago, when he first interfered to protect her in the traveling circus. There was such an irresistible tenderness in the faint smile that wavered about her lips; such a sadness ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... with Eleanor after her father passed from the Ranch House that night. Afterwards, she knew that she had noticed the wistful look on his face; but the memory of it did not come to the surface of thought till she heard the click of Calamity's door in the basement and recollected his words; "Keep Calamity by you." Also, at that very moment, a great gray racing motor car swerved out across the white ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the black velvet covering her eyes Let the dull earth be thrown; Her's is the mightier silence of the skies, And long, quiet rest alone. Over the pure, dark, wistful eyes of her, O'er all the human, all that dies of her, Gently ...
— Giant Hours With Poet Preachers • William L. Stidger
... I went forward to make my compliments and bend low over the little hand; and as I recovered myself I found her eyes on me for the first time—and for a brief second they lingered, soft and wonderful, sweet, tender, wistful. But the next moment they were clear and brilliant again with controlled excitement, as Mrs. Bleecker stepped forward, putting out both hands impulsively. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... slightly aside from the men—and from the other girl. She was pale, her eyes were big and fright-laden, and since Sanderson's comings she had been looking at him with an intense, wondering and wistful gaze, her hands clasped over her breast, the fingers ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... no non-committalism, no wistful casting about for loop-holes, no sly putting out of hooks to catch backers, not the feeblest germ of quibble or lie. The man answers more than he is asked. Is there not, in the present dearth, something ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... is." Wistful lights were stealing into Inna's eyes, and Dick had a suspicion that there ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... with kindled soul, Wistful of his mate and nest, Sounding forth his vernal roll On ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun;[10] and, after sunset, Night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows. Every day, men and women, conversing, beholding and beholden.[11] The scholar must needs stand wistful and admiring before this great spectacle. He must settle its value in his mind. What is nature to him? There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself.[12] Therein it resembles ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Thenceforth one path My footsteps wooed; the fickle train was still Of young desires—new felt my being's aim, My soul revealed! and as the pilgrim turns His wistful gaze, where, from the orient sky, With gracious lustre beams Redemption's star;— So to that brightest point of heaven, her presence, My hopes and longings centred all. No sun Sank in the western waves, but smiled farewell ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of purpose in the blue eyes raised to his, such wistful curves to the sensitive little lips, that Jonathan Green for the first time felt the thrall ...
— Teddy's Button • Amy Le Feuvre
... scornfully. "How could she help it? You are always in the way. You are at the door whenever they go out or come in, and when we are visiting mosques and palaces you are invariably looking at her instead of the tombs and things, with a wistful far-away look, as though you saw a vision. The first time you did it, after you had turned away I saw her feel to see if her hair was all right. ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... Paper' No. 23, 'De Finibus,' in which a sense of the ebb of life is very marked; the whole paper is like a soliloquy. It opens with a drawing of Mr. Punch, with unusually mild eye, retiring for the night; he is putting out his high-heeled shoes, and before disappearing gives a wistful look into the passage, as if bidding it and all else good-night. He will be in bed, his candle out, and in darkness, in five minutes, and his shoes found next morning at his door, the little potentate all the while in his final sleep. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... up there and told them what I had seen elsewhere, an old fellow with a beard said it was S——, the first secretary, who had insisted on their stopping, and had almost had a fight with everyone about it. The old marine told me that the other men would be damned—he used the word in a wistful sort of way which had nothing profane about it—if they stopped much longer. They wanted other people to share the honours; they did not see why every man should not have a turn at the same duty.... I was glad these Americans were making this ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... which keep up military excitement, and gratify the cupidity or ambition of the warrior. The Spanish troops, cooped up within their intrenchments, and disgusted with the languid monotony of their life, cast many a wistful glance to the stirring scenes of war in the centre of Italy, where Caesar Borgia held out magnificent promises of pay and plunder to all who embarked in his adventurous enterprises. He courted the aid, in particular, of the Spanish veterans, whose ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... graceless, the contour thick, and her face, peering out of the thick veil, is altogether displeasing. One has no right to look for beauty in Donatello's statues of adults: character is what he gives. But neither does one expect this kind of vagary. There is great merit in the plaintive and wistful ugliness of the Zuccone: Here the ugliness is wanton, and therefore inexcusable. The Crivelli tomb and the Baptist in San Giovanni Fiorentino have been already described. There were other products of Donatello's visit to Rome, but they are now lost. Tradition still maintains that the wooden Baptist ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... a little ripple of melody, MacDowell's lovely, hurrying, buoyant "Improvisation," with its aeolian vibrancies, its light, bright surges of sound, sinking at the last into cradled restfulness. Without pause or transition she passed on to Grieg; the wistful, remote appeal of the strangely misnamed "Erotique," plaintive, solemn, and in the fulfillment almost hymnal: the brusque pursuing minors of the wedding music, and the diamond-shower of notes of the sun-path song, bleak, piercing, Northern ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... mere machine, a spring For freaks fantastic, a convenient thing, A point to which each scribbling wight must steer, Or vainly hope for food or favor here, A summer's sigh, a winter's wistful tale, A sound at which th'untutor'd maid turns pale, Her soft eyes languish and her bosom heaves, And hope delights as fancy's ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... hardening over the exposed and delicate fibres. She anticipated for me the cold winds and beating rains of an adverse destiny. I knew she did, though she had never told me so in words. I read it in the anxious, wistful, prophetic expression of her soft, deep black eyes, whenever they rested on me. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... the blue of summer skies; her hair was golden yellow; on her soft white cheek was a tinge of pink; two heavy braids of hair hung almost to her knees; her eyes were sparkling with happiness, and a tender and wistful smile curved her lips. As Freddie gazed at her, he thought that there could not be in the world another so radiantly beautiful. She looked about her as one who sees familiar ...
— The Old Tobacco Shop - A True Account of What Befell a Little Boy in Search of Adventure • William Bowen
... Slowly, with a rather wistful sense of regret that it must needs be done, Sara dropped them one by one, unread, into the fire, and watched them flare up with a sudden spurt of flame, then curl and shrivel into dead, grey ash—those last links with the romance of his youth which ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... his cousin with a glance of wistful affection. Street boy as he was, old memories had been awakened, and his heart had been touched by the sight of the cousin whom he had most loved when ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... over Sunday. Won't we just have to cram the days full?" Carita's eyes were wistful. "For fear we sha'n't have much time alone, I want to tell you how much it has meant to me—your letters, and the dress and the Christmas box and everything. I can't begin to tell you the—difference they ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... not going to be a dream alone," she said, with wistful lightness. "It's far too much like being a ghost. I'm going to be a friend, if you'll let me. And I'm going to write to you, if you will tell me where. You won't find it so very easy to make a mere memory of me. And when you come ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... held his boat against a rock while Perry lifted in the basket of fish, he saw the wistful faces of the children standing on the beach. Now, the "Cap'n" considered himself a very good-natured man, and good-natured men are always fond of children. So he called out in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... string on which hung all her sorrows: she looked with wistful disorder for some time in my face; and then, without saying anything, took her pipe, and played her service to the Virgin. The string I had touched ceased to vibrate; in a moment or two, Maria returned to herself, let her ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... respond to his confident smile. "I—I hope so," she said with sad, wistful sweetness. "Then again—aren't there some people who don't belong anywhere—aren't allowed to settle down and be happy, but have ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Castle. Still Murray and Adair agreed that it would be far better to stand on, because if they could manage to weather Cape Palmas they might have a quick run to Sierra Leone. The schooner was soon afterwards put about. No one complained, though they might have cast a wistful eye at the harbour ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... man's words; of the reproach thus thrown by the long-suffering serf, accustomed to misfortunes as the lean ox is to blows, to that delicate thing weeping for his lady love, for the lady of his fancy. It is the one occasion upon which that delicate and fantastic mediaeval love poetry, that fanciful, wistful stripling King Love of the Middle Ages, in which he keeps high court, and through which he rides in triumphal procession; that King Love laughing and fainting by turns with all his dapper artificiality of woes; is confronted with the sordid reality, the tragic ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... He smiled at the wistful look in her face; for he understood. "Nay, Madre mia; such thoughts are not for me. I am a general in an alien camp, with scarce wit ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... titles are seldom ignored, and where the colonel could hardly have escaped his own, even had he desired to do so—this change in the colonel's affairs coincided with that climacteric of the mind, from which, without ceasing to look forward, it turns, at times, in wistful retrospect, toward the distant past, which it sees thenceforward through a mellowing glow of sentiment. Emancipated from the counting room, and ordered South by the doctor, the colonel's thoughts turned easily and naturally to the old town that had given him birth; and he felt a twinge of something ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... a lair high among the branches of a mighty tree. He brought me fruits and flesh. He fought for me and was kind to me—until I came to Bwana and My Dear I do not recall that any other than Korak was ever kind to me." There was a wistful note in the girl's voice now and she had forgotten that she was bantering the Hon. Morison. She was thinking of Korak. She had not thought of him a ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wondering," she recommenced, with a half wistful, half speculative air, "whether I should ask to have a peep at the place ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... uncertain, full of wistful yearnings that lead nowhere. Given a cause and a leader, and they will bring to it an almost pathetic eagerness, staunchness, loyalty, ...
— Why I Believe in Scouting for Girls • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... have ever tasted of the delightful cup of youthful friendship, and pressed with all the glow of early and sincere attachment the venerable hand of a kind instructor, or met the wistful eye and hearty grasp of parting schoolfellows, and ancient dames, and obliging servants, you will easily discover how embarrassing a task it must be to depict in words the agitating sensations which at such a moment ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... Year's Eve as the sun went down, she cast a wistful eye Out from the window pane as a merry sleigh went by. At a village fifteen miles away was to be a ball that night; Although the air was piercing cold, her heart ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... manners, and he looks like a little gentleman, so I've no objection to your knowing him, if a proper opportunity comes. He brought the flowers himself, and I should have asked him in, if I had been sure what was going on upstairs. He looked so wistful as he went away, hearing the frolic and evidently having none of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... Briton? As to what a woman can do there—ah, you have no idea what it means for all these poor peasants of ours to see their lords remain among them, sharing their hardship in defence of their cause. Concerning the children," kissing the one she held and gazing into its face with wistful look, "they can better afford to do without me than my husband and our men. A strong woman to tend them till we come back, is all that is wanted, since a good relative is willing to give them shelter. ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... jacket and fur cap, and sat by the window, her curly head and her bright dress making a pretty picture in the bare little room. Duncan regarded her with a wistful admiration. ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... such as to give rise to the liveliest apprehension. He had eaten nothing since the previous day, pleading want of appetite, and as the sun went down he watched its gradual disappearance beneath the purple waves with wistful eagerness, murmuring, "The last time, the last time!" Then as the solemn darkness swept down over the sea, and the stars came out one by one in the great blue vault above, the little consciousness of his surroundings which he hitherto retained ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Beckett is too shy to like talking much at ordinary times. She would rather let her big husband talk, and listen admiringly to him. But this wasn't an ordinary time. To see Brian stand at the door, wistful and alone, gave her a pain in her heart, so she rushed to him, and poured out all these kind words, which left ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Verena's incurable softness could reproach—with not allowing enough. Olive didn't appear to understand that, while Matthias Pardon drew that picture and tried to hold her hand (this image was unfortunate), she had given one long, fixed, wistful look, through the door he opened, at the bright tumult of the world, and then had turned away, solely for her friend's sake, to an austerer probation and a purer effort; solely for her friend's, that is, and that of the whole enslaved sisterhood. The fact remained, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James |
