"Wile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brilliant essayist and poet, has long occupied an exalted place in English literature. He was the son of an English clergyman, was born in Wiltshire, and educated at Oxford; he died at "Holland House" (the property of his wile, to whom he had been married but about two years), and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Several years of his life were spent in the political affairs of his time, he held several public offices, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... had taught me such wholesome lessons as I might have expected, I should have shown the impudent rascal the door. Alas! I began to be weary of my experience and the fruits of it; I began to feel the horrors of a great void; I had need of some slight passion to wile away the dreary hours. I therefore made this Mercury welcome, and told him I should be obliged by his presenting me to some beauties, neither too easy nor too difficult ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... was who loved his king Too well to suffer such strange thing,— The chieftain of the host was he, Next to the monarch in degree; And, fearing wile or stratagem Menaced the king, he followed them With noiseless tread and out of sight. So on they fared the forest through, From evening shades to dawning light, From damning to the dusk and dew,— The unseen follower and the two. Ofttimes the ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... by that devil's wile, - So sometimes burns in my weary brain The thought that you loved ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... past and longer space I have abode your dev'lish drifts, While you have sought both man and place, And set your snares, with all your shifts, The faultless foot to wrap in wile With any guilt, by any guile: And now you see that will not be, How can you thus for shame agree To keep him bound you should ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Her mouth tightened, her brow brightened—it was as if she were promising to give the lady a thorough frightening. The Duke just showed her a purse—and then bade the huntsman take her to the "lady left alone in her bower," that she might wile away ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... all is one to the fowler; and, Master Varney, you can sound the quail-pipe most daintily to wile wantons into his nets. I desire no such devil's preferment for Janet as you have brought many a poor maiden to. Dost thou laugh? I will keep one limb of my family, at least, from Satan's clutches, that thou mayest rely on. ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... the methods of her kind and her time. To allure a man by every wile she knew, and having won him to keep him uncertain and uneasy, was her perfectly simple creed. So she reduced love to its cheapest terms, passion and jealousy, played on them both, and made ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cold, touched with gold all the surrounding crests and ridges and filled with a yellow but luxurious haze every gorge and ravine. He was compelled to admire its wintry beauty, a beauty, though, that he knew to be treacherous, surcharged as it was with savage wile and stratagem, and a ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a little of contempt in the glance with which Sergius noted the abject terror of the sturdy veteran. Utterly at a loss to explain the apparitions, he never doubted for a moment but that they were the product of some human wile. ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... wile away time, our merchant, who was wonderfully social, scraped acquaintance with some of his fellow-prisoners. "Vat be you in prishon for?" said he to a stout respectable-looking man who seemed in a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... up and then flung himself down again. Temptation had just assailed him afresh. Into what paths were his recollections leading him? Did he not know, only too well, that Satan avails himself of every wile to insinuate his serpent-head into the soul, even when it is absorbed in self-examination? No! no! he had no excuse. His illness had in no wise authorised him to sin. He should have set strict guard upon himself, and have sought God anew upon recovering ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... to mirth, And joy was shot from eye to eye, I 've heard a sadly-stifled sigh; And, 'mid the garlands rich and fair, I 've seen a cheek, which once could vie In beauty with the fairest there, Grown deadly pale, although a smile Was worn above to cloak despair. Poor maid! it was a hapless wile Of long-conceal'd and hopeless love To hide a heart, which broke the while With pangs no lighter ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... it is at the very acme of brilliancy. For this feeling he can hardly be blamed, for the most important condition of successful work by a male choir is probably permanency of membership; and the leader must exercise every wile to keep the boys in, once they have become useful members of the organization. But in justice to the boy's future, he ought probably in most cases to be dismissed from the choir when ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... It was, however, freely said—and that story was never contradicted—that he wore stays, and every effort was made to obtain the evidence of his landlady. Her gossips tried Mistress Jamieson with every wile of conversation, and even lawyers' wives, pretending to inquire for rooms for a friend, used to lead the talk round to the Count's habits; but that worthy matron was loyal to her lodger, and was not quite insensible to ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... under the name of Reynold Greenleaf. While the sheriff is hunting, Little John fights his servants, robs his treasure-house, and escapes back to Robin Hood with 'three hundred pound and more.' He then bethinks him of a shrewd wile, and inveigles the sheriff to leave his hunting in order to see a right fair hart and seven score of deer, which turn out to be Robin and his men. Robin Hood exacts an oath of the sheriff, equivalent to an armistice; and he returns ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... sir? Flowers do smell out here on a morning like this, what with the roses and the errubs and wile thyme and things. It do make the bees busy. But what yer been eating on, sir? Or have yer slipped down among the nattles? Your face is swelled-up a sight. Here, ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... situation was desperate, and the loss of Mother Mayberry's faith in her seemed inevitable to the nonplussed singer lady as she leaned against the fence with Teether over her shoulder. Then the instinct that is centuries old presented to her the wile that is of equal antiquity and, raising her purple eyes to the defenseless Doctor, she murmured in a voice of utter helplessness, into which was judiciously mingled a tone of ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... shook hands, without appearing to recognize him. Babington's blood began to resume its normal position again, though he felt that this seeming ignorance of his identity might be a mere veneer, a wile of guile, as the bard puts it. He remembered, with a pang, a story in some magazine where a prisoner was subjected to what the light-hearted inquisitors called the torture of hope. He was allowed to escape from prison, ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... all threw into—every body packing up their little afares, and rummidging about for any trifele that wasn't worth leaving behind. The sarvunts as is cum in upon us is a nice sett; they have been a long wile trying after our places, and at last they have suckseeded in underminding us; but it's my oppinion they'll never be able to get through the work of the house;—all they cares for is the vails and purkussites. I forgot to menshun that they hadn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... his ears rung with supernatural roaring; a nausea had seized upon him, and death he would have welcomed. In vain, in vain he courted repose; in vain, in vain he had recourse to every expedient to wile himself to slumber. Each minute he started from his pillow with some phrase which reminded him of his late fearful society. Hour after hour moved on with its leaden pace; each hour he heard strike, and each hour seemed an age. Each hour was only a signal to cast off some ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... began to deceive the minds of the Achaeans in their breasts. She gives hope to all, and makes promises to every man, and sends them messages, but her mind is set on other things. And she hath devised in her heart this wile besides; she set up in her halls a mighty web, fine of woof and very wide, whereat she would weave, and anon she ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... loved, stern old Huguenot melodies, many of them, that had come over from France with his ancestor, and been sung down through the generations since. And with these she played soft, tender airs,—I never knew what they were, but they could wile the heart out of one's breast. I sometimes would lift my head from my pillow, and look through the open door at the warm, light kitchen beyond (for my mother Marie could not bear to shut me into the cold, dark little bedroom; my door stood open all night, and if I woke in the night, the coals ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... in either camp Sweet converse held the soldiers; on the grass They place the meal; on altars built of turf Pour out libations from the mingled cup; On mutual couch with stories of their fights, They wile the sleepless hours in talk away; "Where stood the ranks arrayed, from whose right hand The quivering lance was sped:" and while they boast Or challenge, deeds of prowess in the war, Faith was renewed and trust. ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... he stammered, "I'll never forgive myself for leading you and me into a trap, a confounded, diabolical, deep-laid trap, sir, a gin, a snare, a woman's wile. Let us get off anywhere, at Aurora, Newmarket, Holland Landing, Scanlans, anywhere to escape ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... airth I shood ever get up again. But my trusty frend and guide was soon at my side, as the Poet says, but all his united force, with that of too boys who came to his assistance, and larfed all the wile, as rude boys will, coud not get me on my feet agen 'till my too skates was taken off, and I agen found myself on terror fermer on my friend's chair. It took me longer to recover myself than I shood have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... his arm to imitate the dog, the chevalier exposed his hand to his cunning neighbor, who wanted to see if he had Mistigris or the trump,—a first wile to which ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... wile of the enemy,' said Stopchase. 'Truly, it were no marvel to me were the good mare at this moment eating her oats in the very stall where we have even but now in vain sought her. I will go and search ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... wile, To sting my thoughtless rival to the heart; To blast her fatal beauties, and divide her For ever from my perjur'd Hastings' eyes: Their fashions are the same, it cannot fail. [aside: pulling out the ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... receded behind his children, having artfully, by his very abstinence from the more heated eloquence imputed to him often as a fault and a wile, produced a powerful effect upon an audience already ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Down kneeled the Graeme to Scotland's lord. "For thee, rash youth, no suppliant sues, 830 From thee may Vengeance claim her dues, Who, nurtured underneath our smile, Hast paid our care by treacherous wile, And sought, amid thy faithful clan, A refuge for an outlawed man, 835 Dishonoring thus thy loyal name. Fetters and warder for the Graeme!" His chain of gold the King unstrung, The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung, Then gently drew the ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... I might spread some net or woven wile; But since of singing she doth take such pleasure, Without or other art or other guile I seek to win her with a tuneful measure; Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure, To make by singing ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... to him again with immense tenderness, even in this moment of agonized parting exulting in the intoxication of love he saw that he had created in her eyes. There was no wile for the enslaving of a woman's heart that he was not master of. The question as to whether he ought to have employed them on this occasion is quite another matter, and not for our consideration! He was doing what he thought was the only honorable thing possible, giving up this glorious ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... admerashun. Betwene these heathen men and ye followers of Christ their is all ye differenc betwene a slave and a servent of a kind Master. Eche bears the same burden; butt ye servent knows he will recieve just wages for his work, wile ye slave hopes for nothing, and so conkludes that to escape work is to be happy!' I could but aknowlege the wisdomm and pyety of this speche; yett whenn I see ye peopel going bye in their black rayment, I envy the young Gennerel his gloreous ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... grace, His looks adorned the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools, who came to scoff remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With steady zeal, each honest rustic ran; E'en children followed with endearing wile, And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed; Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed: To them his heart, his love, his griefs were ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... has gone to her place. Yes, she was a beauty, Miss Alice; she could play on stringed instruments like the heavenly harpers, and speak many tongues, and work till the flowers grew beneath her fingers. She learnt to wile men's souls from their bodies, if nothing more, in the outlandish parts ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Pompey inviting themselves to sup with him, they would not let him speak with his men to provide any thing more then ordinary; but he telling them he would sup in Apollo, (a Chamber so named, and every Chamber proportioned their expences) he by this wile beguil'd them, and a supper was made ready estimated at fifty thousand pence, every Roman penny being seven pence half penny English money; a vast sum for that Age, before the Indies had overflowed Europe. But ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... simple wile Thy soul has strayed from honor's track, 'Tis mercy only can beguile, By gentle ways, the wanderer back. Go, go, be innocent and live! The tongues of men may wound thee sore, But heaven in pity can forgive, And bids thee go ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... opportunities, or they would see only amazing strength and knowledge of the world in all he did. Those lesser pieces were many of them dashed off to answer the calls of necessity, to flatter the egotism of a troublesome friend, or to wile away a moment of vacancy. Certainly they must not be set against his best efforts. As for Chatterton's life, the tragedy of it is perhaps the most moving example of what Coleridge might have termed the material pathetic. Pathetic, however, as his life was, and marvellous as ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... I find that such trespass or damage has been committed, of course I shall expect that you will see it put a stop to. Come, father! I am going to see old Silas—perhaps you don't know that he is very ill.' So he endeavoured to wile the squire away to prevent further words. He ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... unguarded hour, Yes—it was Love—if thoughts of tenderness, Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress, Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, And yet—Oh more than all!—untired by Time; Which nor defeated hope, nor baffled wile, Could render sullen were She near to smile, Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to vent On her one murmur of his discontent; 300 Which still would meet with joy, with calmness part, Lest that his look of grief should reach ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... kitchen-stairs, he was as lonely as he had been before he left the nursery. He wished now that he had not eaten up the sugar so fast, that he had taken it back with him to the nursery and eked it out to wile away this endless afternoon. The prospect of going back to the nursery depressed him; and he turned aside to linger in the dining-room whence there was a view of Lima Street, down which a dirty frayed man was wheeling ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... butterfly, and apparently as aimless. But, had he known it, she had her eyes on the cottage all the time, and had he failed to come forth she would have come to inquire if he was at home. But the artist did come forth, thinking to wile away an hour with the fascinating gypsy girl. Always dressing for dinner, even in solitude, for the habit of years was too strong to lay aside—and, moreover, he was fastidious in his dress to preserve his self-respect—he appeared at ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... tott'ring gait, Wi' body bent, and snowy pate, Aw met one day;— An' daan o' th' rooad side grassy banks He sat to rest his weary shanks; An' aw, to wile away my time, O'th' neighbouring hillock did recline, An' ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... Ellen to set out alone with him, and take their leisurely way through the wood-path, and she insisted on waiting for her father, who had got into an endless discussion with mine on the Reform Bill, thrown out in the last Session. Griff tried to wile her on with him, but, though she consented to wander about the lawn before the windows with him, she always resolutely turned at the great beech tree. Emily and I watched them from the window, at first amused, then vexed, ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was mistaken. It is quite likely that there was a touch of womanly wile in it. She wanted, perhaps, to raise her value in my eyes. She might have been pointedly saying to me: "Please don't imagine for a moment that I am entirely overcome by you. My respect for ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... say, The king will meditate, And on the third returning day Recall them to debate. Then this shall be the plan agreed, That damsels shall be sent Attired in holy hermits' weed, And skilled in blandishment, That they the hermit may beguile With every art and amorous wile Whose use they know so well, And by their witcheries seduce The unsuspecting young recluse To leave his father's cell. Then when the boy with willing feet Shall wander from his calm retreat And in that city stand, The troubles of the king shall end, And streams of blessed rain ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... ghostliness, of her independence of physical laws and failings, had occasionally given him a sense of fear. He never knew where she next would be, whither she would lead him, having herself instant access to all ranks and classes, to every abode of men. Sometimes at night he dreamt that she was 'the wile-weaving Daughter of high Zeus' in person, bent on tormenting him for his sins against her beauty in his art—the implacable Aphrodite herself indeed. He knew that he loved the masquerading creature wherever ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... was eager bent Upon some cunning wile, Did boldly challenge any beast To race with him a mile. But when nor horse, nor hare, nor hound His challenge would receive, Up started Shrimp, and cried, "Good sir, To race ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... can tell the insect tribe that every month doth bring, And with a curious wile we know to mock its gauzy wing; We know what breeze will bid the trout through the curling waters leap, And we can surely win him from shallow or from deep; For every cunning fish can we a cunning bait provide, In the sport that we court by ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... draws yet a wider ring. Hark! Now again the chorus fills. As bells, Sally'd awhile, at once their paean renew, And high in air the tuneful thunder rolls, See how they toss, with animated rage Recovering all they lost! That eager haste Some doubling wile ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... the ups and downs and changing moods which necessarily affect us in this present life, and I make all allowance, too, for the pressure of imperative duties and distracting cares which interfere with our communion, though, if we were as strong as we might be, they would not wile us away from, but drive us to, our Father in heaven. But when all such allowances have been made, I come back to my text as the explanation of interrupted communion. The two are not agreed; and that is why ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... me gode men Wiues maydnes and alle men Of a tale pat ich you wile telle Wo so it wile here ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... away from Politics and Literature—for the two were always involved in those days, so that unless you approved a man's party you couldn't allow that he wrote tolerable verse—they can wile away a winter evening very pleasantly. Christopher North had an eye for character, a sense of humour, and knew and loved the country. He was country bred. He is at his best when he combines his loves, as he does in the person ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... eat," said old man Spafford. "Dey ain't many critters good to eat. De meat I likes best is wile-cat." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... thus, Olympus. I would see Harmachis no more; the count between us is too heavy, and in another world than this more evenly, perchance should we be matched. Ah, the terror passes! I was but unnerved. Well the fool's story hath served to wile away the heaviest of our hours, the hour which ends in death. Sing to me, Charmion, sing, for thy voice is very sweet, and I would soothe my soul to sleep. The memory of that Harmachis has wrung me strangely! Sing, then, the last song I shall ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... tidings be more glad to me, Than to be made a queen, If I were sure they should endure: But it is often seen, When men will break promise they speak The wordis on the spleen. Ye shape some wile me to beguile, And steal from me, I ween: Then were the case worse than it was And I more wo-begone: For, in my mind, of all mankind ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... cannot sleep for the desire of living. They think it will sober and change them. Like those who join a brotherhood, they fancy it needs but an act to be out of the coil and clamour for ever. But this is a wile of the devil's. To the end, spring winds will sow disquietude, passing faces leave a regret behind them, and the whole world keep calling and calling in their ears. For marriage is like life in this—that it is a field of battle, and not a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sore trial, but it brought out in strong relief the beauty and nobility of character in both Violet and her mother. They proved themselves the most devoted of nurses, patient, cheerful, hopeful, never giving way to despondency, or wearying in efforts to relieve the little sufferers or wile them into forgetfulness of ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... moon is hidden their mother comes to them with treacherous wile, and suggests that they should go off on a holiday again to seek the moon—the moon that for a moment seems captured by the pearl-fishers of the sky. And so off they go merrily, but, alas! no moon appears; and presently they are aware of unwieldy bumping presences upon ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... luckless lev'ret met him on his way.— Who knows not Snowball—he, whose race renown'd Is still victorious on each coursing ground? Swaffhanm Newmarket, and the Roman Camp, Have seen them victors o'er each meaner stamp— In vain the youngling sought, with doubling wile, The hedge, the hill, the thicket, or the stile. Experience sage the lack of speed supplied, And in the gap he sought, the victim died. So was I once, in thy fair street, Saint James, Through walking cavaliers, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... distinguished his principal colleague. But he was, nevertheless, a first-rate partner. His steady, cold brain would carry into effect with precision an intricate, delicate, and bold plan of operations. He had hardihood. Every wile in public life was known to him. He had strong will-power. And in sheer brain of what may be called the purely intellectual type he was miles ahead, not only of Lloyd George, but of all the other politicians of the day. I should say here that he undoubtedly ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... remarked by the evil genius of the house, the Chevalier de Lorraine, for whom Monsieur exhibited the warmest attachment because he was of a very cheerful disposition, even in his remarks most full of malice, and because he was never at a loss how to wile the time away. The Chevalier de Lorraine, therefore, having noticed that he was threatened with being supplanted by De Guiche, resorted to strong measures. He disappeared from the court, leaving Monsieur much embarrassed. The first day of his absence, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... is ready, and the maze of love Looks for the treaders; everywhere is wove Wit and new mystery; read, and Put in practice, to understand And know each wile, Each hieroglyphic of a kiss or smile; And do it to the full; reach High in your own conceit, and some way teach Nature and art one more Play than they ever ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... of those implicated in the murder is a very ingenious piece of work. There is so much padding in this book that if Sir Herbert had worn a tithe of it no stabber could even have scratched him; but with judicious skipping it will wile away two or three idle hours. And, as I said, the solution is a really skilful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... sight it may not seem the likeliest way to make two people care for each other to go laboriously about to tell each how the other underestimates his virtues. Don Pedro's wile would appear to be the more direct—to tell Benedick how Beatrice doted on him, and Beatrice how Benedick was dying for her love. I have always had my doubts, however, about the success ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... come forth!'—and, at the word, Down kneeled the Graeme to Scotland's Lord. 'For thee, rash youth, no suppliant sues, From thee may Vengeance claim her dues, Who, nurtured underneath our smile, Hast paid our care by treacherous wile, And sought amid thy faithful clan A refuge for an outlawed man, Dishonoring thus thy loyal name.— Fetters and warder for the Graeme!' His chain of gold the King unstrung, The links o'er Malcolm's neck he flung, Then gently drew the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... hard to get along. His military habits had incapacitated him for long continued industry, and an invitation to a social glass or an opportunity to tell one of his campaigning stories, was at any time temptation sufficient to wile him away from labor. There was no gentleman's kitchen where Primus was not treated with kindness, and where he did not receive all he asked but he had some pride, and was unwilling to abuse the offered ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... as how I'll go fetch the old ship Wile she's a-unscreuing of her tails; But when I gets back to the Crazy Jane I finds there ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... the barrl was too much for the assembelled multertude of the grate unwashed, and ther was quietness in the Hall, wile vishuns of wiskey baths, free lunch stands, and clene paper collars, past befor thir eyes. Then ther was a loud cheir, and Joe Gilley wos nommernated by acclamashun. The rest of the ticket was put on the slate, by order of John Kelley, and ...
— The Bad Boy At Home - And His Experiences In Trying To Become An Editor - 1885 • Walter T. Gray
... what a darling he is; from his babyhood every woman has adored him—the nurse maids were his slaves, and my old housekeeper and my maid are like two jealous cats as to who shall do things for him when he comes home. He has that queer quality which can wile a bird off a tree. I daresay I am the ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... places open on Sundays. The churches were all very well for a few hours in the morning, but what about the afternoon and evening? Then the beer-house was the only refuge for the artisan or proletarian bowed down by the weight of hard work, unused and untaught to wile away the idle hours of Sunday in any intellectual occupation, and having no friendly attractive home to make the peace of his own hearth the best refreshment after the exhausting week. And so it turned out: ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... to be an anchel, and wiss the anchels stand—holding sings in his hands and on his head! He's too good for this wile world. He'd linger shifering on the brink and fear to launch away all his durn life—if some one didn't push him ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... is one the whole profession agree in pronouncing incurable, and to travel would be torture. No, be content to let me die at home, with you and this beloved daughter to smooth my dying pillow, our wee precious pet to wile away the pain with her pretty baby ways, and my own pastor to comfort me with God's truth and sweet thoughts ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... brow let there be A type of Ireland's history; Pious, generous, deep and warm, Strong and changeful as a storm; Let whole centuries of wrong Upon his recollection throng— Strongbow's force, and Henry's wile, Tudor's wrath, and Stuart's guile, And iron Strafford's tiger jaws, And brutal Brunswick's penal laws; Not forgetting Saxon faith, Not forgetting Norman scath, Not forgetting William's word, Not forgetting ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... of the will turn on itself, and obtain by flattery what it cannot seize by open force. Democracy becomes the latest trick of tyranny: "womanliness" becomes the latest wile of prostitution. ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... Green, kicked his wile for pawning his shirt, on October 25, 1879. She died a week after, and he was sent to penal servitude ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... in which the whole Catholic system appeared to Laura's strained imagination as one vast chasse—an assemblage of hunters and their toils—against which the poor human spirit that was their quarry must somehow protect itself, with every possible wile ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which bade its vot'ries leave At human woes with human hearts to grieve; Stern was the law, which at the winning wile Of frank and harmless mirth forbade to smile; But sterner still, when high the iron-rod Of tyrant power she shook, and call'd that power of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... eventful career. To her knowledge of religious truths young Catharine added an intimate acquaintance with the songs and legends of her father's romantic country; often would her plaintive ballads and old tales, related in the hut or the wigwam to her attentive auditors, wile away heavy thoughts. ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... the quip and wanton wile, And learn you can't endure the Towerless season, O William, I shall not be petty ... I'll Listen ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... abhorred! Get thee behind me! for thou Art Satan, and not my Lord!" He vanished before the spell Of the Sacred Name I named, And I lay in my darkened cell Smitten, astonied, shamed. Thenceforth, whatever the dress That a seeming duty wear, I knew 'twas a wile, unless The print of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... hoax, finesse, imposition, imposture, swindle, humbug, bubble, wile, deception, stratagem, bunko, blind, thimblerigging; impostor, deceiver, quack, mountebank, thimblerigger, charlatan, empiric, trickster, swindler, blackleg, bamboozler, sharper; delusion, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... was at stake, did not for an instant trust his unwelcome companion. Alcatrante would cling to him like an Old Man of the Sea, awaiting the opportunity to get the better of him. Every wile would be employed; but publicity was no part of the game—Orme ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... was an old woman who lived on what she got by wile from her relatives and neighbors. Her husband's brother lived alone with his only son, in a house near hers, and when the son brought home a wife the old woman went to call on the bride. During the call she inquired of the bride whether she had not, since her arrival in the house, heard ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... too generously kind, Thou know'st not her all-penetrating mind. But, should she conquer thee by female wile, Thou shalt not fall a victim to her guile. To-morrow's high divan shall seal her fate; Her wit may free her; or she'll be thy mate. ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... my country's praise, But not to hide the faults within my ken, By tricks of art, or studied, verbal maze, To play on him who reads with careless gaze, To whom each thought upon a printed page. Is gospel truth, nor e'er with wile betrays; From this, oh, steer me clear, nor let the rage Of prejudic'd and ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... and fanaticism.[28] In this mood questions become issues of right and wrong, not of expediency and inexpediency. It has been said that the worthy people of Cambridge are able promptly to reduce the most complex social or economic problem to a simple moral issue, and this is a wile of the Father of Lies, to which many of us yield ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... he tired of her smile, Her dusky charms and each sweet, shy wile; And yet it was long ere, poor trusting dove, Her faith was shaken in the white man's love; And now one last tryst she had asked of him In this haunted glade in ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... and with ban We prostrate the man, Who with smooth-woven wile, And a fair-faced smile Hath planted a snare for his friend. Though fleet, we shall find him; Though strong, we shall bind him, Who planted a snare ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... worship! Did anybody ever hear such wile words against a clergyman, let alone a magistrate, sir? And he then has the cheek to come here and ask you to believe him. 'Old dromedary!' says ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... small bright head, A light of healing, glanced about the couch, Or through the parted silks the tender face Peeped, shining in upon the wounded man With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw The sting from pain; nor seemed it strange that soon He rose up whole, and those fair charities Joined at her side; nor stranger seemed that hears So gentle, so employed, should close in ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... sadness sweeter than her smile, As if her heart had deeper thoughts in store She must not own, but cherish'd more the while For that compression in its burning core; Even innocence itself has many a wile, And will not dare to trust itself with truth, And love is taught ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and Kerry there 's many a mile; They 've right men in Derry, no doubt; But give me the Kerry man's blarneying smile, And give me the Kerry girl's conjuring wile, And lips, like ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... found himself in a maze of perplexity, as he stood for a long time in silence, studying the fair picture of femininity there offered to his gaze. In his breast, various emotions warred lustily. He was a-thrill with elation over the possibility of outwitting the foes who had used every wile and subterfuge of trickiness to ruin him. He was moved to a profound admiration for the intelligence that had originated and carried out a counter plot so instantly effective in his interests. But underlying ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... it might ha' bin werry serious," said Mr. Grubb, with a most melancholy shake of the head:—"Do let's get out o' this wile place." ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... With an unromantic style, With borrowed colour and curl, With fixed mechanical smile, With many a hackneyed wile, With ungrammatical lips, And corns ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... by side over the snow, through the burnt lands that lie on the Peribonka's high bank above the fall. Lorenzo had used no wile to secure Maria's company, he simply invited her before them all, and now he told of his love, in ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... were furious.... "You little tattie doolie," Cathro roared, "were there not a dozen words to wile from if you had an ill-will to puckle? What ailed you at ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... am I still a queen. The savage Moor Who could not conquer Ceuta from thy sword, In his own country, not with every wile Of his whole race, not with his myriad crests Of cavalry, seen from the Calpian heights Like locusts on the parched and gleamy coast, Will never ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... the simple wile. "I hope you'll be just as well satisfied, Si, if it turns out he doesn't want Irene ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... set forth to track the fugitive pastry-cook and wile him back to their service. She found him after a time at one of the new hotels, where he had already been engaged as pastry-cook. To Milly's plea that he return to his old allegiance, he orated dramatically upon Ernestine and la femme ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... conjured all the tails off Sambo's sheep," she remarked, with feminine wile. "I saw 'em hanging on ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... enchantress practised to beguile Some new admirer in her well-spread snare; Nor used with all, nor always the same wile, But shaped to every taste her grace and air: Here cloister'd is her eye's dark pupil, there In full voluptuous languishment is roll'd; Now these her kindness, those her anger bear, Spurr'd on or check'd by bearing frank or cold, As she perceived her slave ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Evidently they were first cousins of our sleighbells. Here, then, as cordially as with us man abhors an acoustic vacuum, and when Nature has put her icy bell-glass over the noises of the field, he must needs invent some jingle to wile his ears ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... of logic and seemings of knowledge. If thou wilt discern the truth, desire IT, not its accidents and collateral effects. Rest in the pursuit of it, putting simplicity of quest in the place of either force or wile; and such ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... "stratagem" and "strategist" sufficiently indicate that craft and wile are part of the professional equipment of great warriors, but with them these are not, and cannot be, predominant. Their skill is not so much to contrive success by deceiving an enemy as to command it by local superiority of force, either exerted in violence, or imposing submission ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... nervously, and suspecting mischief. He was a rat in trouble. He had thin brown hair, neatly brushed and plastered down, so as to make it look still thinner, and his face was the average narrow cunning face of the dishonest man-servant. It had an ounce of wile in it to a pound or two of servility. He seemed just the sort of rogue meanly to join in an underhand conspiracy, and then meanly to back out of it. You could read at a glance that his principle in life was to save his ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... resurrections we see around us in nature. Look at the death that falls upon the world in winter. And look how it revives when the sun draws near enough in the spring to wile the life in it once more out of its grave. See how the pale, meek snowdrops come up with their bowed heads, as if full of the memory of the fierce winds they encountered last spring, and yet ready in the strength of their weakness to encounter them again. Up comes ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... lord brought before him a dance or show of young ladies with bared bosoms who were to dance in that guise before the king, perhaps to prove him, or to entice his youthful mind. But the king was not blind to it, nor unaware of the devilish wile, and spurned the delusion, and very angrily averted his eyes, turned his back upon them, and went out to ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... am also told that there was some boy-and-girl love affair between you. I suppose that he indulged in a flirtation to wile ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... And truly 'tis a rare subtlety, a notable wile, and thou a right cunning witch and wise. But how wilt achieve ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... de bigeon: "If you should brint de songs Or oder dings of Breitmann Vhich to dem on-belongs, Dey will tread de road of Sturm and Drang, Die wile es möhte leben,[75] Und be mis-geborn in pattle- To dis ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... feeling of comfort which we enjoyed. We spent some time, after the table was cleared, in consulting the chart, interspersed with frequent references to the book of sailing directions, and when we tired of these a book apiece served to wile away the time until midnight, when Smellie had to turn out once more and take charge of the deck. As the eight strokes upon the bell proclaimed the expiration of the first watch, we donned our oilskins and repaired to the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. The service past, around the pious man, With ready zeal, each honest rustic ran; E'en children followed, with endearing wile, And plucked his gown to share the ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... see! prostrate fall The mummeries that long enthralled our isle; So perish error! and wide over all Let reason, truth, religion ever smile: And let not man, vain, impious man defile The spark heaven lighted in the human breast; Let no enthusiastic rage, no sophist's wile Lull the poor victim into careless rest, Since the pure gospel page can teach him to ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various |
