"Would-be" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ladies by the pillar that I cannot tell to a certainty which one you mean,' whispered my would-be informant. Stooping and glancing along my arm with the precision of a Kentucky rifleman, I brought my finger to bear directly upon the head of the unknown, who, as the devil would have it, at this critical juncture turned her head and encountered ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... that there would be no need, for already the pair of would-be thieves could be heard crashing madly through the undergrowth, in the endeavor to make a ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... oppressive. [Page 98] Had the proprietors to pay the expense the case would be different, and this, added to the public burdens, would pretty well exhaust the whole rents. Such things, however, are never considered by would-be philanthropists; and if matters are made easy for the tenants, landlords may starve. Burra is not the only place in Shetland, or out of it, where tenants are bound to ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... than childish, it is childish enough—plays on words, jokes on English mispronunciation of French, and so forth. But it very seldom, though it is sometimes intolerably nasty, approaches the sheer drivel which appears in some English would-be comic writing of the Middle Ages, or the very early Renaissance—such, for instance, as most of that in the prose "Pleasant Historie of Thomas of Reading,"[135] which the late Mr Thoms was pleased to call a romance. Yet the actual stuff of "Thomas ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... writer then revealed his actual agenda by offering — at an amazing low price, just this once, we take VISA and MasterCard — a scrambler guaranteed to daunt the Trunk Trawler and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof gangs of the world to ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... relation to that of the higher persons. For example, nothing can be more absurd than in "Don Sebastian," and some of Southerne's tragedies, to hear the comic character answer in prose, and with a would-be witticism, to the solemn, unrelaxed blank verse of his tragic companion.[35] Mercutio is, I think, one of the best instances of such a comic person as may be reasonably and with propriety admitted into tragedy: from which, however, I do not exclude ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... the mighty West. Two great questions now require grappling with. The one is, whether slavery shall henceforth be tolerated; the other, whether we shall strengthen this great government of the Union so as to preserve it in future from the criminal intrigues of would-be seceding, ambitious men of no principle. Now is the time ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a captive and a culprit, thus converting my own house into a prison, my would-be murderess and former plaything, was intolerably painful. To leave her at large was to incur danger such as I had no right to bring on others. To dismiss her was less perilous than the one course, less painful than the other, but combined peril and ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... a savage rush towards the sackclothed prophets. But though the multitude of would-be murderers swept over, around, and past the mound on which the two faithful witnesses had been standing, and though they did not see them disappear, yet ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... marriage up to 1827, when my mother went to America, my father's affairs had always been going down in the world. She had loved society, affecting a somewhat liberal role and professing an emotional dislike to tyrants, which sprung from the wrongs of would-be regicides and the poverty of patriot exiles. An Italian marquis who had escaped with only a second shirt from the clutches of some archduke whom he had wished to exterminate, or a French proletaire with distant ideas of sacrificing himself to the cause of liberty, were always ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... Kuramae of Asakusa suddenly a hopeful light came into his eye. Abruptly he made his way to the side of the roadway. Here boarding covered the ditch, removing the occupant of a booth erected thereon, and would-be clients, from the passing stream of humanity. There was a table in the booth, and on it were several books, a vessel containing water, brushes (fude), scrolls for writing, and a box containing divining sticks. It was ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... acquainted. Here again we recognize the stormy, restless activity of the time, which thenceforth did not cease, and brought about the unity of the nation and of art. The ideas which prevailed among the students' clubs, the theories of St. Simon and would-be reformers generally had captivated the young artist's mind. In the "Young Europe," Laube advocated the liberal thoughts of the new century, the intoxication of love, and all the pleasures of material life. Wagner's head was full of them and Heine's writings and the sensual "Ardinghello" ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... have seen what happened now! The would-be Anna was immediately transformed, her face grew green and yellow like gall, and she burst with rage; at the next moment a black rabbit jumped over the bilberry bushes and disappeared ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... the successor to the throne of Spain. The Archduke Charles of Austria was supported by England, Portugal, and Holland, and was conveyed to the Peninsula and landed at Lisbon by an English fleet under Admiral Rorke. The admiral, having disposed of the would-be king, sailed for Barcelona, which he was told was a ripe plum, ready to fall into his mouth. He was disappointed; Barcelona was by no means ripe for his purposes, and he sailed back, ready for any enterprise that ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... the risk. It seems to me wise that there should be an international conference held to deal with this question of immigration, which has more than a merely National significance; such a conference could, among other things, enter at length into the method for securing a thorough inspection of would-be immigrants at the ports from which they desire to embark ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Christian fathers of modern days in their indulgences. The lad was now nineteen years old, and does not appear to have been willing, at the first parental attempt, to give up his military appanages and that swagger of the young officer which is so dear to the would-be military mind. Cicero tells him that if he joined the army he would find his cousin treated with greater favor than himself. Young Quintus was older, and had been already able to do something to push himself with Caesar's friends. "Sed tamen permisi"—"Nevertheless, I told him he might ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... though petrified, and Frederick's life would doubtless have been lost—for he was weak after his many joustings—had not he who had asked to fight last of all galloped forward instantly on marking the drawn weapon and driven his lance into the body of the would-be murderer! ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... However, if I am to have what you have bought, I should like you to inform me where they are, when hey are to be fetched, and by what kind of conveyance. For if Damasippus doesn't abide by his decision, I shall look for some would-be Damasippus,[558] even at ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... loving lemon, Miss Marigold," he chuckled. "Amyl nitrite. The same soothing syrup which quieted our would-be robbers on Sixth Avenue, that night when we left his apartment. It will wear off in about three hours. I had a little glass container folded in my own handkerchief, which I put in his overcoat pocket as a parting souvenir, crushing it as ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball
... considerately entered into conversation with Shoni, endeavouring to express himself in his mother-tongue, but with that hesitation and indistinctness common to the dwellers in the counties bordering upon England, and to the "would-be genteel" of too many other parts of Wales, who, perfectly unconscious of the beauty of their own language, and ignorant of its literature, affect English manners and customs, and often pretend that English is more familiar ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... [232] The would-be anonymous compiler (he was really Gueulette, on whom v. inf.) of this and the other collections now to be noticed, when acknowledging his sufficiently evident supercherie and some of his indebtednesses ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... a dead silence, neither of the would-be evaders of the enforced king's service moving, but listening intently for the ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... What had he expected? He could hardly have told. But as he drew nearer and nearer he had been gradually nerving himself for the worst. He had been dreading to find he knew not what. Wentworth might be sitting with Rachel, the faces of both telling that Wentworth's would-be explanations had been of no avail; or Rachel herself might have been absent—she might have strolled out into the crowd and there unawares heard rumours of what he felt convinced must by this time be in every one's mind, on every one's lips. It was therefore for the moment an unmeasured ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... twins, in anticipation of success crowning their efforts to become professional instructors in the two country clubs, outlined a splendid and cunning campaign for themselves. By inspiring a fierce rivalry between the would-be golfers of the two clubs, they could build up a thriving practice in their chosen profession. The rivalry was already bitter along other lines. If they could get the men of the clubs into a fighting humour over the golf situation, there would be no end to the lessons ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... to the table and began to write, leaving me to the Chronicle, the pages of which I did not see. Then came Mr. Dix, and such a change I had never beheld in mortal man. In place of the would-be squire I had encountered in Threadneedle Street, here was an unctuous person of business in sober gray; but he still wore the hypocritical smirk with no joy in it. His bow was now all respectful obedience. Comyn acknowledged ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... we send a boat with officers and men to board her and see if we have really a prize, and all is excitement. One officer offers his share for ten dollars—another for twenty—a third for a V, and one for fifty cents; but would-be salesmen of their shares are far more numerous than buyers. And soon the boat returns, reporting the vessel as bound for Port Royal, with coffee, sugar, and sutlers' stores. Her papers are all right, and she may go on without further hinderance. Now back ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... them in hand to give them wings for eternity. Happily for them the names of most of these mighty personages are not known. One or two, however, took care to make posterity laugh. Trissino, a very great man in his day, and the would-be restorer of the ancient epic, had the face, in return for the poet's too honourable mention of him, to speak, in his own absurd verses, of "Ariosto, with that Furioso of his, which pleases ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... others were standing, and leveled a Browning pistol at the detective. He even hesitated an instant to take aim, but before his finger had pressed the trigger, Curtis had sprung at him. There was no time for a blow, but a well placed kick spun the would-be murderer off his feet, and the crash of the shot came an infinitesimal part of a second too late. As it was, the bullet struck a lamp higher up the street, and a line taken subsequently showed that it must have missed Steingall by only a ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... remark the number of good poems meeting us on every hand, not only from writers known to fame, but also from the living tombs of obscure country newspapers. We know it is the fashion to deride such productions, and sneer at the 'would-be poets.' Let critics speak the truth fearlessly, but let them never prefer the glitter of a self-glorifying search for faults to the more amiable but less piquant occupation of discovering solid thought, earnest feeling, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... partiality and want of discrimination on the part of the executive committee of the Great Exhibition in the allotment of space to the would-be exhibitors are of daily and hourly recurrence. Among the grievances which are more especially injurious to the thorough development of British industry in the more delicate and refined art in feminine accomplishments, we may mention ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... enough to like reading and thinking as well as talking of the ladies very much. They are of various sorts; but they are generally lovable. There is no better for affection and faithfulness and pluck than the Josiane of Bevis, whose husband and her at one time faithful guardian, but at another would-be ravisher, Ascapart, guard a certain gate not more than a furlong or two from where I am writing. It is good to think of the (to some extent justified) indignation of l'Orgueilleuse d'Amours when Sir Blancandin rides up and audaciously kisses ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... to action, he was ready to move before even his would-be conquerors, in those slow-going days, imagined he had thought of resistance. Money and men were raised, the alliance of England and Holland was secretly obtained, a council of defence was appointed to govern Sweden during the absence of the king, and on April 23, 1700, two months before his ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... "Some would-be soloists make a great mistake right here. They think that chorus work spoils them as soloists. Not at all, if they have proper views of individual work in a chorus. If they propose to sing out so they shall sound forth above all others, then they may damage their voices for solo ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... the keeping of one who could never, never bestow the love, the boundless love, which has surrounded me from infancy, like the firmament of heaven. I have been sought in marriage more than once, it might be for reputed wealth or for imagined charms; but when I compared my would-be lovers to Ernest, they faded into such utter insignificance, I could scarcely pardon their presumption. I do not think he has ever loved himself. I do not think he has ever seen one worthy of his love. I believe it would ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... nor key to any military secret; he had been far too wise to intrust any to the accidents of this alien house. The prying intruder, whoever it was, had gained nothing! But there was unmistakably the attempt! And the existence of a would-be spy within the purlieus of the house ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... fell we left the enemy alone, and went back to our laager. The next morning the outposts reported that the would-be ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... and of most others, was to attach ourselves to one particular coach or coachman on the road, as thus special attention was secured for ladies or children traveling alone, and preference as to places should there happen to be a glut of would-be passengers. I cannot honestly say that the old Bath-road coachman was, as a rule, an attractive member of society, though the mellowing effects of time and the traditions of the road (helped largely ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... grievances of a suffering people and the visionary or dangerous schemes which they beget in ill-balanced brains. To oppose moderate reformers as well as extremists is both unjust and unwise. It confounds together the would-be healers and the enemies of the existing order. Furthermore, an indiscriminate attack tends to close the ranks in a solid phalanx, and it should be the aim of a tactician first to seek to loosen ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... we owe you bitter thanks: Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood— Then men had said—but now—What hinders me To take such bloody vengeance on you both?— Yet since our father—Wasps in our good hive, You would-be quenchers of the light to be, Barbarians, grosser than your native bears— O would I had his sceptre for one hour! You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Legislatif under the rule of Napoleon; or falls under the domination of a system or of wealth, as it has done in our own day. The Republican Assembly, that dream of some innocent souls, is an impossibility. Those who would fain bring it to pass are either grossly deluded dupes or would-be tyrants. Do you not think that there is something ludicrous about an Assembly which gravely sits in debate upon the perils of a nation which ought to be roused into immediate action? It is only right of course that the people should elect ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... of wisdom which tell her that God made the daisies every one, and all the flowers and the butterflies and the cows in the meadows. After a time of silence she puts her question, her clear eyes searching the face of her would-be teacher. "Who made God?" she asks, and while the teacher wavers she repeats her question until some sort of answer comes. That night when she is tucked into bed her mind returns by way of her evening prayer, to the subject of the morning. She hurls another question, ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... he heard the boy's steps, dull and sodden, as he crossed the hall; and then a thin, would-be cordial voice in ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Their politick would-be's do but show themselves asses That other men's calling invade; We only converse with pots and with glasses, Let the rulers alone with their trade; The Lyon of the Tower There estates does devour, Without showing law for't or reason; ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... by the harbouring of ancient grievances," the Duke replied. "I have always known Sir Michael as a just if a somewhat stern man. Please, however, do not look upon me in any way as a would-be mediator. My interest in this matter ceases with the delivery ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... adopted,—or rather which the builders have adopted for us,—in order to throw the whole first floor into one apartment which may be presumed to have noble dimensions,—with such drawback from it as the necessities of the staircase may require. A sharp unadorned corner projects itself into these would-be noble dimensions, and as ugly a form of chamber is produced as any upon which the eye can look. I would say more on the subject if I dared to do so here, but I am bound now to confine myself to Miss Vavasor's room. The monstrous deformity of which I have spoken was not known when ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... The would-be petitioner took his rebuff considerably to heart, and began, in a low and rapid voice, an argument with himself upon the duration of the state of grace. The Enders listened but indifferently, however; the dying man was more interesting to them than living questions, for he ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... would-be ascetic announced: "This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?" God whispered, "I," but the ears of the man were stopped. With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed. The man said, ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... absurd caprice, written to burlesque the modern poets.' His genius was nothing if not critical, and literature afforded him plenty of material for fun. Romance-writers with their jousts and duels and armed heroines, would-be epic poets with their extra-mundane machinery and pomp of phrase, Marino and his hyperbolical conceits, Tuscan purists bent on using only words of the Tre Cento, Petrarchisti spinning cobwebs of old metaphors and obsolete periphrases, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... terror, and the whole front rank, beating frantically at the strange missiles, wheeled about and clawed at the rank behind, battling to force its way through. But the rolling masses were not to be denied. After a brief, terrible struggle, the would-be fugitives were borne down and trodden underfoot. The new-comers were greeted with a second discharge of the blazing brands, and the dreadful scene repeated itself. But now there was a difference. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... twinkle and laugh at thee! And that rosy, pursed-up mouth that will answer so sparingly to thy flatteries, as if words were a waste of time, and kisses were their proper language. Oh, pupil of Mejnour! Oh, would-be Rosicrucian, Platonist, Magian, I know not what! I am ashamed of thee! What, in the names of Averroes and Burri and Agrippa and Hermes have become of thy austere contemplations? Was it for this thou didst resign Viola? I don't think thou ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of Nemours P. Flarion, he told himself, obviously meant something. It pointed straight toward some entirely new kind of answer. Granted, old Nemours P. had been a horrible mistake, a paranoid, self-centered, would-be, dictator whose final act was quite in keeping with the rest of his official life. Who else would be in Miami Beach, far away from his home state, while the President was declaring ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett
... hand just before he is about to turn the last two cards (excluding the one left in hoc). As the bank pays four for one 'on the turn,' it is a very good thing for the player, and the faro banker, for the nonce the would-be sport, soon finds himself ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... all over again that we had been Treasure Seekers, and we had been Would-be-Goods, and he thought it was ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... had promised, she gave the first dance to Philip Van Reypen; and after that she was fairly besieged by would-be partners. The fact that she was hostess at her own coming-out ball, the fact that she danced beautifully, and the fact that she was so pretty and charming, all combined to make her, as was not unusual, the most ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... the man's contemptuous laugh and saw him pull the trigger. The hammer refused to move. It was so rusted that the weapon was quite useless. For a moment the desperado's eyes sought the pale face of his would-be slayer. A devilish smile lurked in their depths. Then he held out the pistol for the other to take, while his whole manner ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... travelling fellow countrymen than by the Russians. The paltry ambition of a certain class of Americans for introduction to high society disgusted him greatly, and he was not found an efficient ally by these would-be comrades of the Russian aristocracy. "The ambition of young Americans to crowd themselves upon European courts and into the company of nobility is a very ridiculous and not a very proud feature of their character," he wrote; ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... as her subsequent remarks proved. He saw that the would-be sentimental old lady had an eye ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... was beautiful and eloquent; much too high-bred to put a restraint upon her natural manner, she was often more naive, and even brusk, than your would-be aristocrats dare to be; but what ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... however, a party of ten tough-looking individuals entered the restaurant and, in forceful language, demanded the best the country offered in eatables and drink. My friend, or would-be-murderer, was in at the time and I noticed a look of cunning pleasure steal over his rough countenance. The strangers were dressed in corduroy trousers, velveteen coats, slouch hats and black ties. Their shirts and collars of red flannel made a conspicuous appearance and ...
— Dangers of the Trail in 1865 - A Narrative of Actual Events • Charles E Young
... rich would-be fathers-in-law who promise to obtain from his Majesty a decree, by which I shall be created Comte de Rimonville and Peer ...
— The Stepmother, A Drama in Five Acts • Honore De Balzac
... (which involved the usual assumption of overshoes to prevent our infidel leather from contaminating the floor), we fell, after evading countless beggars and would-be guides, into the hands of a kindly old man who pressed handfuls of little white nuts upon us and who remains in my memory as the only independent Mussulman priest in India, for he refused a tip. In this respect nothing could be more widely separated than his conduct and that of the three ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... old who had never known what it was to have hemp touch his lithe body. With Lady Lightfoot it was different. She would leap aside, she would throw her head one way or the other as she saw the lasso leave the hand of her would-be captor; but once it touched her she would stop stone still, too wise, too experienced to struggle ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the girl, I presumed was her lover. He was, beyond compare, the gallant and the dancer of the party. Next came two boors: one of whom, in the whole contour of his face and person, and, above all, in the laughably would-be frolicksome kick out of his heel, irresistibly reminded me of Shakespeare's Slender, and the other of his Dogberry. Oh! two such faces, and two such postures! O that I were an Hogarth! What an enviable gift it is to have a genius ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... of similarity to the child labor movement is obvious, for the friends of the children early found that they needed much statistical information and that the great problem of the would-be reformer is not so much overcoming actual opposition—the passing of time gradually does that for him—as obtaining and formulating accurate knowledge and fitting that knowledge into the trend of his time. From this point of view and upon the basis of what ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... not continue to live under the direct or indirect rule of the violators of Belgium, France and Serbia, the would-be murderers of Russia and Rumania, the murderers of tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers of our blood, and the accomplices in numberless unspeakable crimes committed in this war against humanity by the two degenerate and irresponsible dynasties of ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... the spirit of the game. In one scurrying backward jump, he was off the veranda and on the lawn, tail vibrating, eyes dancing; satchel held tantalizingly towards its would-be possessor. ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... a lower step in front of her father. "Yes," said she. She half laughed up in his face, like a child who knows she has been naughty, yet knows she will not be blamed since she can count so surely on the indulgent love of the would-be blamer. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Milan (who had even to be baptised after his election to his bishopric), had been pitchforked into the church from civil life; they lived in a time of pitiless factions and personal feuds; they had to conduct their disputations amidst the struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs and favourites swayed their counsels, and popular rioting clinched their decisions. There was less freedom of discussion then in the Christian world than there is at present (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... next few moments to lay the matter before Mr. Garner, and to gain his sanction to compel her to throw off this disguise before she leaves this room, to confront her with the evidence of her crime, and to force her to make a full confession at the bedside of her would-be victim." ...
— Pretty Madcap Dorothy - How She Won a Lover • Laura Jean Libbey
... Albert rallied her once about young Mears she answered: "Oh, Jim's all right. He isn't handsome, but then, he is strong," which delicate sarcasm may be considered a sufficient reflex of her feelings toward others of the would-be attentive young farmers. ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... argument being the duty of the whole community to join hands in resisting the enemies of the land. The preacher knew he was directly antagonising the views of his wealthiest parishioner and the father of his would-be wife, but that fact only served to make him speak the more forcefully and fervently. However hard and stern the old Presbyterian faith was, its upholders had the merit of knowing what they believed, and of stating that ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... not likely that the large raft that carried the dreaded crew of would-be cannibals was going any faster; and therefore, whatever distance they might be off, there would be no great danger of their getting ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... some school in which she could prepare herself to teach. Catherine Beecher's then famous seminary at Hartford was recommended, and a correspondence was opened. Several letters passed between Catherine and her would-be pupil, which so aroused Catherine's interest, that she went on to Philadelphia chiefly to make a personal acquaintance with the very mature young woman who at the age of twenty-seven declared she knew nothing and wanted to go to school again. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... to the burglar's wife, I noticed the daughter of a would-be suicide, a tall, beautiful girl, who formed a pathetic contrast to her surroundings. Her unfortunate father—an unsuccessful musician—had succumbed in the struggle for an honest life, and the cares of a ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... played the role of a lady, as well as with the one who acted the buffoon, that she gave orders that they should be brought in; and, as she looked at them closely, she felt so much the more interest in them, that she went on to inquire what their ages were. And when the would-be lady (replied) that he was just eleven, while the would-be buffoon (explained) that he was just nine, the whole company gave vent for a time to expressions of sympathy with their lot; while dowager lady Chia bade servants bring a fresh supply ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... English, about 1462, by Adam de Cobsam, has been published by the Early English Text Society, ed. Furnivall, 1865, with a supplement by Mr. Clouston, 1886; it is the old story of the honest woman, who dismisses her would-be lovers after having made fun of them. That story figures in the "Gesta Romanorum," in the "Arabian Nights," in the collection of Barbazan (story of Constant du Hamel). It has furnished Massinger with the subject of ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... sure I should have cried. When the dame returned, she resumed her box-iron, in which the heater went rattling about, as, standing on one leg—the other was so much shorter—she moved it to and fro over the garment on the table. Then she called me to her by name in a would-be pompous ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... art dear to me—perchance For these follies; since the Health of Reason, Our would-be Sages teach, engenders not The Whelks and Tumours ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the struggle which is most circumstantial, and on the whole most probable, the first difficulty which the would-be rebel had to meet and vanquish was that of quitting the Court. Alleging that his father was in weak health, and required his care, he requested leave of absence for a short time; but his petition was refused on the flattering ground that the Great King was too much attached to him ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... the room as he warms to his theme.] And if it's necessary for a private individual such as myself to advertise, as I maintain it is, how much more necessary is it for you to do so—a novelist, a poet, a would-be playwright, a man with something to sell! Dash it, they've got to advertise soap, and soap's essential! Why not literature, which isn't? And yet you won't find the name of Mr. Philip Mackworth in the papers from one year's end to another, ...
— The Big Drum - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the so-called stage, while scattered about indiscriminately are the tables and chairs. The air is filled—yea, reeking—with the fumes of bad whiskey, stale beer, and the odor of foul smelling cheap tobacco smoke, and through all this haze the would-be "show," goes on, and the applause is manifested by whistles, cat calls, the pounding of feet on the floor and glasses on the tables. Occasionally some artist (?) will appear who does not seem to strike the popular fancy and will be greeted by a beer glass or empty bottle being ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... said and repeated over and over again, that as long as there are capitalists, these abuses of power will be perpetuated? It is precisely the State, the would-be benefactor, that has given to the companies that monopoly and those rights upon us which they possess to-day. Has it not created concessions, guarantees? Has it not sent its soldiers against railwaymen on strike? And during the first trials ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... Italy's treacherous surprise attack and her hypocritical justification aroused here, are quite indescribable. Neither Serbia nor Russia, despite a long and costly war, is hated. Italy, however, or rather those Italian would-be politicians and business men who offer violence to the majority of peaceful Italian people, are unutterably hated." On the other hand German papers spoke with much more moderation and recognized that Italy was acting in an entirely ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... crowd Lyle would never mingle, much to the indignation of Maverick himself, and the chagrin of two or three would-be admirers, and not feeling at liberty to join, unasked, the group in the porch, she withdrew to her little room up-stairs, and taking from its hiding place one of the new books her friend had brought her, ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... a human being, the letter of introduction to him, given by a man-witch to a would-be proselyte, becomes quite credible. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... says Locker, when speaking of occasional or society verse, "has fully succeeded who did not possess a certain gift of irony." That is profoundly true. A would-be writer of light verse who has not an ironical habit of mind had better change his purpose and write an epic. Locker has his full share of the necessary gift. Half gay, half melancholy, always ironical—dissembling most of pain and some of pleasure—he ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... sleeplessness and deep anxiety—for the crafty Jarmuthians had proved unexpectedly unwilling to credit him as the Atlantean outcast and would-be renegade he had pretended ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... spoke; and his eloquence made his hearers almost see it too. One after another they nodded their approval, and approval had never before been won when he addressed a Spanish audience. But when Archbishop Talavera, who was spokesman for King Ferdinand, asked the would-be discoverer what reward he expected in case his voyage was successful, the answer was so unexpected that nearly every man in the room ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... of her head that set her candy-basket swaying and a peal of saw-teeth laughter, she started off, while her would-be teaser found that the laugh was turned ...
— Solomon Crow's Christmas Pockets and Other Tales • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... thrill an audience. Djabal, horror-stricken at what she has done, confesses to her that he is no Hakeem, but a mere man. After the first revulsion of feeling, her love, hitherto questioned and hampered by her would-be adoration, burst forth with a fuller flood. But she expects him to confess to the tribe. Djabal refuses: he will carry through his scheme to the end. In the first flush of her indignation at his unworthiness, she denounces him. In the final scene occurs another wonderful ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... are ever forced as they are in civilised countries; but, on the contrary, the young people are left to choose those they like best. Generally the lady will not accept a lover till he has brought her the head of a man as a proof of his bravery. If the young would-be husband cannot get the head of an enemy, he is sometimes tempted, if he is very much in love, to kill the first person of any tribe not his own whom he meets, which is, of course, considered so high a compliment to the lady, that she rarely after that ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... the girl checked herself, aware of something almost ludicrously pitiful in the smug tearful countenance and stumpy would-be fashionable figure. Hit a man your own size, or bigger, by all means if you are game to take the consequences. But to smite a creature conspicuously your inferior in fortune—past, present, and prospective—is unchivalrous, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... pink ribbon round her neck was confined by a little dainty Jew's-harp of a brooch; she had her mother's pinch of the nose too. Then there were two other young ladies Miss Letitia Ann Thornton, a tall-grown girl in pantalettes, evidently a would-be aristocrat, from the air of her head and lip, with a well-looking face, and looking well knowing of the same, and sporting neat little white cuffs at her wrists the only one who bore such a distinction. The third of ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... landlady who in days agone had fetched the guard to subdue Danton's would-be assassins, and who likewise had resented Robespierre's prying as to the identity of Henriette's visitor, studied the girl at first a bit quizzically. Released from Salpetriere, eh? Was she the same sweet, pure Henriette she knew? Yes, the little Girard—la ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... pilot, as he jumped to the ground, and bent over to detach some part of the machinery without which the motor, as Andy always said, "would not move worth a cent." This he often took with him, just as a chauffeur might the spark plug of an automobile, rendering it helpless unless the would-be thief were prepared to supply the deficiency off-hand, which was a remote possibility ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... more than one man was kept busy listening to the idle tales of a crowd of would-be informers. The results which had failed to follow the first day's publication of the crime came rapidly in during the second. There were innumerable persons of all ages and conditions who were ready to tell how they had seen this and that one issue from Mr. Adams's house on the afternoon of ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... their toddy, then not that they desired it, but merely that it was their custom always of an afternoon: man had no choice—he must fill space, he must occupy himself; and if so, why not Mistress Croale's the place, and the consumption of whisky the occupation? But alas for their would-be seeming indifference! Everybody in the lane, almost in the Widdiehill, knew every one of them, and knew him for what he was; knew that every drop of toddy he drank was to him as to a miser his counted ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... the ice in Finland the same as in Norway; that is to say, little holes are dug along the would-be path into which small fir-trees are stuck, and therefore these impromptu roads look like ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... said, sternly. "My dear fellow, Van Sneck was nearly done to death in yonder conservatory, and his would-be assassin was ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... in Phoebe's brown eyes, giving her a flashing look of something woodland, despite her would-be smart attire. She dropped ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... his wife's eccentricities. But happily for Francesca, he was not one of those men who are easily influenced by the opinion of others. He formed his own judgment, and pursued his own line of conduct undisturbed by the comments and animadversions of his would-be advisers. His young wife was much too precious to him, much too perfect in his sight, her whole life bore too visibly the stamp of God's dealings with her, for him to dream of interfering with the course she had taken. On the contrary, he looked upon ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... tired of this," he managed to drawl out in a would-be casual tone, and then he suddenly collapsed in a limp ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... own appearance—she had dressed without looking in the glass. Her only object was to dismiss her would-be suitor as speedily as possible. All feelings of shyness, awkwardness, or maiden modesty, were quenched and ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... joined in the laugh. The Chicago man was too valuable a would-be subscriber to quarrel with. And, then, how impossible to expect a person brought up as Mason had been to understand the ordinary refinements ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... misfortunes heated. Like so many other widowed Scots- women, she vowed her son should wag his head in a pulpit; but her means were inadequate to her ambition. A charity school, and some time under a Mr. M'Intyre, 'a famous linguist,' were all she could afford in the way of education to the would-be minister. He learned no Greek; in one place he mentions that the Orations of Cicero were his highest book in Latin; in another that he had 'delighted' in Virgil and Horace; but his delight could never have ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... narrow, commercial streets, never anywhere in bad weather. These flowers of Paris, blooming only in Oriental weather, perfume the highways; and after five o'clock fold up like morning-glory flowers. The women you will see later, looking a little like them, are would-be ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a day, is ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... be a long and wearisome night for most of them. The resting places were anything but soft, and a fitful wind often blew the smoke of the campfire toward the would-be sleepers, causing them to cough and shift their positions. But neither man nor beast came to disturb them, ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... shocking, rude Professor! CRICHTON BROWNE—your predecessor In attacks, would-be suppressor Of the higher Education—once compared them To the Pantaloon, and scared them, But he was polite, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... down the resistance of the assemblies; and Walpole would consent to no suggestion looking toward enforcing it by arms. Stamp duties were spoken of, but not enacted. The governors raged and complained, but the assemblies held the purse-strings. Would-be tyrants like Shute of Boston might denounce woe, and Crosby of New York bellow treason, but they were fain to succumb. Paper money wrought huge mischief, but nothing could prevent the growing power and wealth of the colonies, fed, also, by the troubles in Europe. In 1727 the Irish, always ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... deck him. I came up with the ice and bet $250 before the draw. The sucker came back and raised me $5,000. The Jew was behind him and saw his king full on sevens; he then came around and saw my ace full on trays. I pretended to be a little short, and called for Bush to bring me some money. Then my would-be partner commenced to get out his money, and was in such a hurry (for fear he would not be in time) that he tore the buttons off his vest. He put up his $4,000; Bush got $1,000 from John C. Heenan (the prize fighter, who was on the boat), ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... fancy for Eugenie Gontier, who violates no conjugal vow in loving him, but whose love he is not rich enough to buy—even were that love for sale—oh, then, everyone must point at him the finger of scorn! As for myself, it seems that it was useless for me to resist so many would-be lovers in order to open my door more freely to the man of my choice—an action which no one holds against me, however, because I am only an actress, and the public classes us in a separate category, so that they may more readily ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and irritable as well as disappointed. The other was shaken and sulky with little to say. There were great pauses in the talk. I thought how I congratulated Carrot, the cheerful and irresponsible, on his escape. Assuredly his would-be captors would have seemed to him dull dogs. Of course he would have thoroughly deserved ordinary boredom. But theirs was like a London fog. So it fell about that I had much time to give heed to the Black Watch as they chattered over their fire hard by. One was telling ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... 'if you'll give me a cigar.' 'Much yours as mine,' replied Jack, handing him his lordship's richly embroidered case with coronets and ciphers on either side, the gift of one of the many would-be Lady Scamperdales. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... of vanished ages sleep th' ungarnered truths of Time, Where the pall of silence covers deeds of honor and of crime; Deeds of sacrifice and danger, which the careless earth forgets, There, in ever-deep'ning shadows, lie embalmed in mute regrets. Would-be-gleaners of the Present vainly grope amid this gloom; Flowers of Truth to be immortal must be gathered while they bloom, Else they pass into the Silence, man's neglect their only blight, And the Gleaner ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... fresh assailants than when we have won some victory over evil in ourselves or around us. David repeated his former tactics. Not waiting to be attacked, and to have the soil of Israel profaned and wasted by enemies, he crossed Jordan to meet the would-be invader, and, when he met him, struck hard, and crushed him and his host, slew the commander, and dispersed the thunder-cloud. The coalition broke down. Hadad-ezer's tributaries were glad to shake off his yoke and transfer their allegiance ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... shortly after they had moved to the Hathaway house a ringing of the front door bell heralded the advent of callers. Since callers often meant would-be adopters of infants it was natural for manager and nurses to wish to make as good a showing as possible. A lady and a gentleman were ushered into the parlor. Dr. Weston congratulated himself that everything was in such good order and that he ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... tuna-fishing, big-game shooting, yacht sailing, and so forth—and mark you, these are the things the idlers know. In all truth, they constitute the shop-talk of the idlers. And the funniest part of it is that many of the clever people, and all the would-be clever people, allow the idlers so to impose upon them. As for me, I want the best a man's got in him, call it shop ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... was disturbed no more by any outbreak. Those would-be jokers seemed to know when they had taken hold of what Bobolink termed the "business end of a buzz-saw;" at any rate they were only conspicuous during the remainder of the night by ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... person, O would-be propounder of involved questions," interposed Melodious Vision. Her voice was more musical than a stand of hanging jewels touched by a rod of jade, and each word fell like a separate pearl. "He who ignores the Usages must expect to find the Usages ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... risaldar drove across the Chandni Chowk, fighting his way with the aid of whip and voice, and made a wide circuit through dark lanes where groups of people argued at the corners, and sometimes a would-be holy man preached that the end of ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... Those anxious to supersede him began to dribble in, it is true; but they faded away, one by one, after interviews with Miss Van Rolsen, and returned no more. They were a mournful lot, these would-be, ten-dollar-a-week custodians; Mr. Heatherbloom wondered if his own physiognomy in a general way would merge nicely in a ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Steel. Something remained for explanation there, but there really was a case against him. The villain would let that case come on; the would-be villain did so in his own ready fancy, and the end of it was a world without Steel but not without his wife; only, she would be Steel's ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... the open air was not accidental. Every year these sacred plays drew larger congregations to the festival service. Every year the would-be spectators for whom the church could not find standing room grumbled more loudly. In the churchyard (which was still within the holy precincts) there was ample space for all. So into the churchyard the performers went. The valuable ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... him though. Ted, stumbling out of the dining-room, with a mixture of would-be unconcern, compound embarrassment and complete though suppressed fury at Oliver on his face. It was hardly either just or moral, Oliver reflected, that Mrs. Severance should be the only one of them to seem ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... the receiving back again, as Abraham did Isaac, the lawful pleasures which had been resigned to the Divine will, is so nicely spoken of; and I do believe it explains the cause of half the gloom of would-be Christians. They do not quite refuse, nor quite resign their hearts, and so they are kept, not only without true peace, but without the enjoyment of those earthly goods which have been called for, not ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall
... written the eternal blazon that must not be to ears of flesh and blood. The spirit that can assume form at will must surely be able to bend that form to completest and most delicate expression, and the part of the ghost in the play offers work worthy of the highest artist. The would-be actor takes from it vitality and motion, endowing it instead with the rigidity of death, as if the soul had resumed its cast-off garment, the stiffened and mouldy corpse—whose frozen deadness it could ill model to the ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... said the unfeeling Bickley, "or you will be late for your appointment and put your would-be neophyte into a ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... shrieked Skipper Simms. "Do you reckon I'm a-goin' to sit quiet here for a week an' let any blanked wharf rat own that there fo'c's'le just because I got a lot o' white-livered cowards aboard? No sir! You're a-goin' down after that would-be bad man an' fetch him up dead or alive," and with that he started menacingly toward the three who stood near the hatch, holding their firearms safely out of range ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... introduce myself I dived on him from a low altitude, just passing over his head. Well, scare him I certainly did, poor man; he was much too frightened to get off, and seemed to be doing his best to get inside his would-be Trojan animal. The machine landed on a heap of picks and shovels, ran among a number of Huns who were having a morning wash at some troughs (or rather I should say, a lick and a promise!). They scattered and then closed in on the ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... from the name of the heroine, a girl of low degree, who resists temptation and reclaims her would-be seducer. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... inexplicable circumstance made him resolve to go to Paris and endeavour to clear up the mystery which appeared to surround his wife and son. He received an unsigned letter in unknown handwriting, and in which Madame de Lamotte's reputation was attacked with a kind of would-be reticence, which hinted that she was an unfaithful wife and that in this lay the cause of her long absence. Her husband did not believe this anonymous denunciation, but the fate of the two beings dearest to him seemed shrouded in so much obscurity that he could delay no longer, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... point to be decided by the would-be owner of wild-fowl is the locality where he intends ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... absurd!" she exclaimed. And no longer able to control herself, she burst into a peal of laughter in which was easily detected the scorn, good humor and pity she felt for her would-be rival. ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... disgust to the wilds;—you remember the anchorite's rebuke to Tse-Lu. But now they were all coming from their retirement—the most active minds, whether the best or not—to shout their nostrums and make confusion worse confounded. All sorts of socialisms were in the air, raucously bellowed by would-be reformers. A "loud barbarian from the south" (as Mencius called him—I do not know who he was) was proclaiming that property should be abolished, and all goods held in common. One Yang Chu was yelling universal egoism: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... at the gate had been reinforced by another man, to hold the crowd back. When the would-be spectators found that only work men and invited guests would be admitted to the yard the disappointed ones made a scurry for the nearest portions of the ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... humbug swallow a small machete, in Buenos Ayres, the boy took a fancy to the performance, and approached the old humbug aforesaid with the view of being taught the business. Not having any money, however, wherewith to pay the necessary premium, the overtures of the would-be apprentice were repulsed; whereupon he set about experimenting with his own aesophagus with a piece ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... the maids, for a minute or more they made one cluster; then, shyly or with laughter, they drifted apart like the petals of a wind-blown rose, and silk doublet and hose gave chase. Five minutes saw the goodly company of damsels errant and would-be bridegrooms scattered far and near over the smiling meadow. For the most part they went man and maid, but the fairer of the feminine cohort had rings of clamorous suitors from whom to choose. As for me, I walked alone; for if by ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... requested to take his place.—Besides appointing Norina heiress of half his wealth, Don Pasquale at once makes her absolute mistress of his fortune. Having succeeded in attaining her aim, Norina throws aside her mask, and by her self-willedness, prodigality and waywardness drives her would-be husband to despair. She squanders his money, visits the theatre on the very day of their marriage ignoring the presence of her husband in such a manner, that he wishes himself in his grave, or rid of the ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... would-be-tamer, not wishing to be unjust, refers to this heifer as having "a very intelligent face" and "a reflective cast of character." He certainly paid Margaret Fuller herself no such tribute, but thus early in his Brook Farm experience let appear his ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... compassionate face before he renewed his request, and finally selected a man in an overcoat, whose stomach was adorned with a gold chain. "I have been looking for work," he said, "for the last two months and cannot find any, and I have not a sou in my pocket." But the would-be gentleman replied: "You should have read the notice which is stuck up at the entrance to the village: 'Begging is prohibited within the boundaries of this parish.' Let me tell you that I am the mayor, and if you do not get out of here pretty quickly ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... as an invention of the would-be-free. It was a brilliant flash of genius of a seeker after freedom. However, it became a boomerang. By multiplication and hereditary transmission, the inferiority and the number of the slaves created a new overwhelming problem for the superior few, the upper crust of the free. At ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... exacted by withholding supplies—not so uncommon a form of blackmail as it suits the dominant sex to imagine. Lady Harman's emancipation does not take the conventionally unconventional form, for some deeper reason, I think, than that her sententious friend and would-be lover, George Brumley, could not altogether escape her gentle contempt; indeed, she recognises Sir Isaac's claims upon her for duty and gratitude in a way which modern high-spirited priestesses of progress would scarcely approve. She fights merely for a limit ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various
... childish eagerness for a personal meeting with Napoleon. The Emperor was far from averse, and made a formal proposal to that effect, which was promptly accepted; the intercourse between French and Russian officers grew warmer and closer every day, and the arrangements for an interview between the would-be Eastern and Western emperors ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... subjects, as diligently as if what they said had any point in it, and what they did any ultimate issue in probability or common sense. But beyond the fact of having a large house, where their several sets may assemble at stated periods, these would-be lady patronesses are utterly impotent to help or hinder; and their patronage is just so much pinchbeck, not worth the ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... depended on my presenting a respectable appearance. I was on my best behaviour. It was greatly to my confusion, therefore, as I walked upstairs under the inspection of those of the upper flat, that I stumbled on the narrow steps. In order to reassure my would-be friends, I called out, "Don't be alarmed, I am a chaplain and a teetotaller". They burst out laughing and on my arrival at the top greeted me very heartily. I was taken into a long bedroom where there were five beds in a row, one of which ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... firm movement of the arm in using it at the right moment. A crane similar in appearance to the oldtime gibbet is erected near the track, and may have served as a warning by its suggestive appearance to some would-be train-wrecker. Its base is a platform two feet and a half square, with two short steps on top to assist the person hanging the pouch; a post ten feet in height passes up through this platform near the edge; a stout joist about ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... to be so. But this still left the question open whether the very fact that there was an agitation in camp on the subject, and intrigues of the sort I have mentioned, did not make it wise for him to say something which would show, at least, that he gave no countenance to any would-be revolutionists. We debated this at some length, with the general conclusion that it might be well for him to remind the army in general orders that whatever might be their rights as citizens, they must as soldiers beware of any organized effort to meddle ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... he would be so anxious for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father, and so delighted with Mrs. Weston; and at last would begin admiring her drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet's, in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively civil; but ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... told that the officer was no other than Herman, the would-be gambler, whose imagination had been strongly excited by the story told by Tomsky ...
— The Queen Of Spades - 1901 • Alexander Sergeievitch Poushkin
... for him a career in the public service. In 1839 he became sub-prefect for Arcis-sur-Aube, during the electoral period. The delegate, Trailles, satisfied Antonin's rancor against Giguet: his official recommendations caused the latter's defeat. Both the would-be prefect and the sub-prefect vainly sought the hand of Cecile Beauvisage. Goulard cultivated the society of officialdom: Marest, Vinet, Martener, Michu. [The Member ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... "Mesopotamia" lay icily at her docks, and the graceful woman had vanished from the cabins where her would-be betrayer had watched her every movement. Fritz Braun's active mind had sounded every danger now ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... twin-engined aeroplane made its appearance, and it was the year, too, in which flying may be said to have grown so common that the 'meetings' which began with Rheims were hardly worth holding, owing to the fact that increase in height and distance flown rendered it no longer necessary for a would-be spectator of a flight to pay half a crown and enter an enclosure. Henceforth, flying as a spectacle was very little to be considered; its commercial aspects were talked of, and to a very slight degree exploited, but, more and more, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... repeats the prayer addressed to the Ancient One, by which is probably meant the Fire (the Ancient White). A'y[n]in[)i] states that the final sentences should be masculine, i.e., His soul has faded, etc., and refer to any would-be seducer. There is no gender distinction in the third person in Cherokee. He claimed that this ceremony was so effective that no husband need have any fears for his wife after ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... all things, which is so characteristic of University towns. His feelings were easily roused and but indifferently satisfied; wherever the boy turned he found himself surrounded by a wonderful and would-be learned activity, to which the garish theatres presented a ridiculous contrast, and the entrancing strains of music a perplexing one. Now, to the observer who sees things relatively, it must seem strange that the modern man who happens to be gifted with exceptional ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... warn vine-growers against the advice given to them by some would-be authorities, who tell them they can make a light wine by picking grapes before they are ripe. This is absurd. The unripe grape contains a certain percentage of vegetable acids, such as tartaric, malic, &c., &c. some of which are themselves converted into glucose during the process of ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... beneath me seems the earthly ball! The pigmy race below I scarce can see; How does my art, the noblest art of all, Bear me close up to heaven's bright canopy!" So cries the slater from his tower's high top, And so the little would-be mighty man, Hans Metaphysicus, from out his critic-shop. Explain, thou little would-be mighty man! The tower from which thy looks the world survey, Whereof,—whereon is it erected, pray? How didst thou mount it? Of what ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... had saved it from going through his brain. It occurred to Michael in that instant that that was what had been intended. The conviction that the man had also recognized him gave strength to his arm as he wrenched the revolver from the hand of the would-be assassin. Nobody knew better than Michael how easy it would be to plead "self-defense" if the fellow got into any trouble. A man in young Carter's position with wealth and friends galore need not fear to wipe an unknown fellow out of existence; a fellow whose friends ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... found thee," he cried. "Listen, Don Diego Estenega, lord of the North, American, and would-be dictator of the Californias. Two hours ago I despatched a vaquero with a circular letter to the priests of the Department of the Californias, warning them each and all to write at once to the Archbishop of Mexico, and protest ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... thrown together in the Mediterranean, and the American had been a frequent visitor in the other's house at Gibraltar. On one occasion Hillyar's family had made a passage from Malta to Gibraltar in an American ship-of-war; for in those troubled times would-be voyagers had to avail themselves of such opportunities as offered, and the courtesy of a large armed ship was among the most favorable. It was natural, therefore, that, as the Phoebe stood into the ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan |
