"Would-be" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Great summed up the law to the would-be proselyte while standing on one leg, how did he express it? 'Do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.' This is Socialism in a nut-shell. Do not keep your riches for yourself, spread ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... found me, or rather I found you—you, the critic, the arbiter of the greenroom, the highly-organised do-nothings—teaching others how to do nothing most gracefully; the would-be Goethe who must, for the sake of his own self-development, try experiments on every weak woman whom he met. And I, the new phenomenon, whom you must appreciate to show your own taste, patronise to show your own ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... to use the local expression, 'called an auction' shortly after his father's death, he was favoured with quite the usual crowd of would-be buyers. Almost everyone with either money or credit within a radius of twenty miles came into Carrowkeel for the occasion. The presiding auctioneer had done his duty beforehand by advertising old Mr. Conneally's mouldy furniture as 'magnificently ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... to want, sir?" inquired Mr. Tag-rag, with a would-be resolute air, twirling round his ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... evening a kind of silence fell between them,—they were separated as by an ice-floe. They met often in the social round, but scarcely spoke more than the ordinary words of conventional civility, and Morgana apparently gave herself up to frivolity, coquetting with her numerous admirers and would-be husbands in a casual, not to say heartless, manner which provoked Seaton past endurance,—so much so that he worked himself up to a kind of cynical detestation and contempt for her, both as a student of science and a woman of wealth. And yet—and yet—he had almost loved her! And a thing that ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... The latter felt himself disarmed, for it is chiefly in a brawl they have power; then words are spoken in anger which rouse the passions of the complainant's friends. In this case, after vociferating some time, the would-be offended party came and said to my man that, if they exchanged some small gift, all would be right, but, my man taking no notice of him, he ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... head was quickly raised from her task, and the would-be artist studied her work critically. The boy was right. They did look somewhat like a litter of curly-tailed pigs. All they needed were eyes and pointed ears. Mechanically Peace added these little touches, ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... he did not so much fear. He was on safer ground now, and was able to meet any ordinary difficulty; but there were other things. He wondered whether Wilson ever guessed the secret of his heart, wondered whether he knew that he was a would-be rival. That Wilson was enamoured of Mary Bolitho was universally believed, but whether she in any way returned his affection no one was ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... our life: 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 us— I wed with thee! I bound by precontract Your bride, ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the declaration of any would-be traveller (as "Margate") it shall be optional for the booking-clerk to reply, "I double Margate"; when his opponent, the public, must either pay twice the already increased fare or forfeit ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... revolutionary; he was looked upon as the friend of all progressive propaganda in his art; to play for Liszt, to have his opinion on performance or composition, was the ambition of every musical celebrity, or would-be one; his cooperation in innumerable concerts and music festivals was sought for. His was a name to conjure with. Between him and these assaults on his almost proverbial kindness stood the Princess, and the list of his great musical productions ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... a half from Woodlands, and in the parish of Horton, in Dorsetshire. The field in which the Duke concealed himself is still called "Monmouth Close." It is at the north-eastern extremity of the Island. An ash-tree at the foot of which the would-be-king was found crouching in a ditch and half hid under the fern, was standing a few years ago, and was deeply indented with the carved initials of crowds of persons who has been to visit it. Mr. Macaulay has mentioned that the fields were covered—it was the eighth of ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... which everybody else shrank. And amongst our neighbours in the village, those with whom, day after day, time after time, she would plead "the Lord's controversy," were those with whom every one else had failed. Some old village would-be sceptic, half shame-faced, half conceited, who had not prayed for half a lifetime, or been inside a church except at funerals; careworn mothers fossilized in the long neglect, of religious duties; sinners whom every one else thought hopeless, and who most-of all counted ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... it up and made inquiries concerning 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. In one of her letters to Sarah, early ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... my coming, sure enough. I had not been in the house an hour, when an imposing Embassy arrived from him. He did not quite reach the impudence of sending my would-be assassins, but he sent the other three of his famous Six—the three Ruritanian gentlemen—Lauengram, Krafstein, and Rupert Hentzau. A fine, strapping trio they were, splendidly horsed and admirably equipped. Young ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... swift and glad convalescence. At last, the public were about to know! They would know what Beautrelet had promised to reveal to M. Filleul and the decisive words which the knife of the would-be assassin had prevented him from uttering! And they would also know everything, outside the tragedy itself, that remained impenetrable or inaccessible to the efforts of ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... machine, passes over a very delicate balance, and if it is found to be light or bad when it is weighed, the machine throws it out on the floor in front of the would-be registerer. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 51, October 28, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... mind; How would I now describe the motley groups Which crowd, in thoughtless ease, thy moving road. Mark the young Confidence of yesterday, Offspring of pride, and fortune's blinded fool, (Engender'd like the vermin of an hour) All would-be fashion, elegance, and ease, While, by his side, the weaker vessel smirks, In tawdry finery, with presuming gait, As though the world were made for them alone; Their liveried Lacquey, half-conceal'd in lace, The vulgar wonder of an upstart race. How heartlessly ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... gathering of Roman society; for few would care to try their chances against him after that. Ortensia herself was dimly conscious that if she could keep him in his place, as she had done to-day, his admiration would protect her against other would-be worshippers. ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... bad, and it is for this that the civilized world is compelled to substitute for it something more orderly and less capricious. Good as the Imperial Government might have been, it must be recollected, too, that since its first fall, both the Emperor and his admirer and would-be successor have had their chance of re-establishing it. "Fly from steeple to steeple" the eagles of the former did actually, and according to promise perch for a while on the towers of Notre Dame. We know the event: if the fate of war declared against the Emperor, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... so—but from the distance, somewhere on the road he had just traversed, came a howl, long-drawn and terrifyingly familiar. Joshua heard it, jumped sidewise, jerked at the halter and, as if playing "snap the whip," sent his would-be captor heels over head over the edge of the bank and rolling down the sandy slope. The halter flew from Brown's hands, he rolled and bumped and clutched at clumps of grass and bushes. Then he struck the beach and stopped, spread-eagled on ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... objects I have ever laid my eyes on," said Hazlehurst, "have been pretending houses, and, I am sorry to say, churches too, in the interior of the country; chiefly in the would-be Corinthian and Composite styles. They set every rule of good taste and good sense at defiance, and look, withal, so unconscious of their absurdity, that the effect is as thoroughly ridiculous, as if it had been the object of the architect to make ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... The would-be critic then goes on to tabulate tests of certain other dynamo machines by a committee of the Franklin Institute in 1879, the results of which showed that these machines returned about 50 per cent. of the applied mechanical ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... which we do not wish to jeopardise; if this were otherwise we should not let him keep his money for a single hour; we would have it ourselves at once. For property is robbery, but then, we are all robbers or would-be robbers together, and have found it essential to organise our thieving, as we have found it necessary to organise our lust and our revenge. Property, marriage, the law; as the bed to the river, so rule and convention to the instinct; ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... character-development—that of the chief personage, Horace. It is a cleverly painted portrait of a type that reappears, with slight modifications, in all ages; a moral charlatan, who half imposes on himself, and entirely for a while on other people. A would-be hero, genius, and chivalrous lover, he has none of the genuine qualities needed for sustaining the parts. Nonchalant and inert of temperament, he is capable of nothing beyond a short course of successful affectation. The imposition breaking down at last, he sinks helplessly into the unheroic mediocrity ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... bat before it can manage to retire to a safe and snug retreat where it may enjoy its dinner in peace and quiet. Then fighting takes place, during which they tear one another with their hooks, screaming angrily the while. At last the would-be victim contrives to escape by flight to a distant spot, where in hot haste it devours its fruit. When the flying foxes drink, they lap by hanging head downwards from a branch over the water. Some of ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... Miss Altifiorla to be responsible. But when she was told that she had given cause for mortal offence to two gentlemen, there was something in the phrase which greatly aggravated her anger. It was as though this would-be friend was turning against her for her conduct towards Sir Francis. And she was just as angry that the friend should turn against her for her conduct to her husband. "Miss Altifiorla," she said, "I must request that there be no further conversation between ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... altogether. And even as he fell, a great cry rose from the foot of the stair, and looking out through the portion of the doorway that was yet unclosed, we saw armed men rushing up to the rescue, and called an answer to their shouts. Then the would-be murderers who yet remained on the stairway, and amongst whom I saw several priests, turned to fly, but, having nowhere to go, were butchered as they fled. Only one man stayed, and he was the great lord Nasta, Nyleptha's suitor, and the father of the plot. For ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... stolidity, inhumanity, or vice finds its way into the chambers of disease through the would-be 365:27 healer, it would, if it were possible, convert into a den of thieves the temple of the Holy Ghost, - the patient's spiritual power to resuscitate him- 365:30 self. The unchristian practitioner is not giving to mind or body the joy and strength of Truth. The poor suf- fering heart ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... assistance, the man had scrambled from beneath the carcass of his would-be slayer, without a scratch to indicate how close ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... other, amused and excited him. Mr. Dorrance's phlegmatic nature found supreme content in dwelling upon the incarnation of patrician tranquillity at his right hand, and he regarded the actions of his frisky would-be tormentor very much as a placid, well-gorged salmon would survey, from his bed of ease upon the bottom of a stream, the gyrations of a painted ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... obviate the danger attendant upon the masses being called upon to signify their disapproval by withdrawing co-operation. If the titleholders gave up their titles, if the holders of honorary offices gave up their appointment and if the high officials gave up their posts, and the would-be councillors boycotted the councils, the Government would quickly come to its senses and give effect to the people's will. For the alternative before the Government then would be nothing but despotic rule pure and simple. That would probably mean military dictatorship. The ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... and feeling myself debarred by my poverty from entering the lists against him, I could but stand aside and fume at his greater advantages. Lucy danced much with him at the governor's ball; she was so beset by would-be partners that when I, who had somewhat morosely hung back, approached her to ask her for a place on her card, she hummed, and pursed her lips, and said she feared I was too late, and then, with a pretty air of relenting, ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... disreputable steamboat engineer, whom Duncan, believing he is deceiving the girl, threatens to kill on sight. Cragg kills a man in a drunken brawl on shore, and Duncan assists the sheriff to save him from would-be lynchers, and swears to protect him, before he knows who the prisoner is. When he learns he refuses to be bound by his oath, but as he is about to carry out his threat he is led to believe that Cragg honestly ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... his unknown guest and asked in a tone of would-be heartiness. "And what might your name be? You're a bright-looking feller to be a ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... that's it?" smiled Jimmie. "Well, you girls, as has happened to many another would-be plotter before now, have found things have gotten rather out of your ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various
... this course, I think that Prestwick with its Himalayas and its Alps is the finest that we have. It is an excellent test to apply to a would-be champion, although there have been complaints that this course also is short. Yet it is longer than it used to be, and it is merely the rubber-filled ball that makes it seem short. The third hole at Prestwick is one that stirs the soul ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... abiding place. Suffice to say, we got as far as the top of the stairs in the vast middle corridor after stumbling through a series of dim, damp rooms, and then found our way effectually blocked by a stout door which was not only locked and bolted, but bore a most startling admonition to would-be trespassers. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... PASTURE or FRAGRANT THISTLE (C. odoratus or C. pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful, odorous purple or whitish flower-head, that often measures three inches across, with a formidable array of prickly small leaves just below it. In case a would-be pilferer breaks through these lines, however, there is a slight glutinous strip on the outside of the bracts that compose the cup wherein the nectar-filled florets are packed; and here, in sight of Mecca, he meets his death, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... the same habitual sophistry in palliating their want of principle, are common to the great and powerful, with the meanest and most contemptible of the species. What can be more convincing than the arguments used by these would-be politicians, to shew that in hypocrisy, selfishness, and treachery, they do not come up to many of their betters? The exclamation of Mrs. Peachum, when her daughter marries Macheath, "Hussy, hussy, you will ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... 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 offer up to us the incense with which they smother us! Be ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... 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 her with ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... he made known what he had just learnt at his aunt's home. On the previous afternoon the Christophersons had been surprised by a visit from their relatives and would-be benefactress, Mrs. Keeting. Never before had that lady called upon them; she came, no doubt (this could only be conjectured), to speak with them of their approaching removal. The close of the conversation (a very brief one) was overheard ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... guessed with almost uniform certainty by any one looking on the dealer's 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
... intervening vertical cylinders are soldered. The designs in repousse work are evidently pendants to one another. The first represents a hunt of wild bulls. One bull, whose appearance indicates the highest pitch of fury, has dashed a would-be captor to earth and is now tossing another on his horns. A second bull, entangled in a stout net, writhes and bellows in the vain effort to escape. A third gallops at full speed from the scene of his comrade's captivity. The other design shows us four tame bulls. The first submits with evident ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... hands seared and his clothing soaked, smoking, and a general wreck, was striving to evade his handlers and stand attention to the colonel, who for his part was bending over Bob Lanier just emerging from his third involuntary plunge in the drifts, and sputtering objurgations on his would-be benefactors. ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... that would-be Solomon came to the throne of England, he went one day to hear the causes in Westminster Hall, in order to show his learning and wisdom, of which he had no mean opinion. Accordingly, being seated on the bench, a cause came on, which the counsel, learned in the law, set forth to such advantage ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... Ambrose of 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, ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... sandwich to Pong, who was always lying in wait for such scraps as might come his way. Lady Agnes always ate macaroons—never touching the sandwiches. This fact, of course, it was argued, might not have been known to the would-be poisoner. Her ladyship, as usual, partook of the macaroons and felt no ill effects. It was, therefore, clear that the poison was intended for but one of them, as, on this occasion, a single sandwich came up from the buffet. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... looked upon as a creature abnormal and "a thing apart." It has even become incorporated into our social fabric as one of the sacred institutions of the game of polite society. How could we possibly protect ourselves against our instructors in youth and our would-be friends in later life if there were no such ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... think that possibly they had eluded their would-be captors. But his hopes were dashed, for suddenly there came ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... ringed about by her relations, who do not suffer her fiance to win her until his head has been broken in several places. The same feeling exists in Europe, as is witnessed by the antagonism displayed by the school-boy, and even the older and more sensible males of a family, to their would-be brother-in-law. It is the natural instinct of the man, to protect his women-folk from all comers, breaking out, as natural instincts are wont to do, in ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... has one unfortunate tendency: it teaches one to trust no one, not even a would-be benefactor. A foreign country had recently manufactured a new form of field gun which was undergoing extensive secret trials, which were being conducted in one of her colonies in order to avoid being watched. I was sent to find ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... somewhat of aversion, and (being a good Protestant) with a great deal of suspicion, she could not find it in her heart to avoid a chat with him whenever he came down to the farm and to its mill, which he contrived to do, on I know not what would-be errand, almost every day. Her uncle and aunt at first looked stiff enough at these visits, and the latter took care always to make a third in every conversation; but still Mr. Leigh was a gentleman's son, and it would not do to be rude to a neighboring squire and a good customer; ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... 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 her in the midst of her train; and the companion ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... taken in hand. There was no lack of recruits when it came to doing the cooking; in fact, Elmer found that he had six enthusiastic would-be chefs to choose from, even Landy expressing a willingness to serve, as he had to hover near the blaze more or less anyway, and might as well ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... and not better. He had received a very nasty flesh-wound in the thigh; but the bullet had been extracted. There was not the slightest clew to the identity of his would-be murderer. The Squire himself had said nothing. He had been found almost bleeding to death by the roadside; the alarm had been given, and in terror and consternation his own tenants had ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... is this," Donegan said. "That's our side of it. Fredericks has friends—his brother's friends. Petty criminals, would-be criminals, unbalanced types. You know that. You've read ...
— Sight Gag • Laurence Mark Janifer
... heard what, for goodness' sake?" snapped one of the would-be hearers, breaking in rawly upon the soft waves of the hand and the imploring taps with which each of the two gentlewomen was endeavouring to make way ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... people in this country. A measure is now before Congress looking to the development of farm colonies, in which the government will acquire large stretches of land to be sold on easy terms of payment to would-be farmers, who are permitted to repay the initial cost in installments covering a long period of years. Similar measures are under discussion in California, in which State a comprehensive investigation has been made of the subject of tenancy and the possibility ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... heard, that at Obydos calcareous layers, thickly studded with marine shells, had been found interstratified with the clay, but he did not himself examine the strata. The Obydos shells are not marine, but are fresh-water Unios, greatly resembling Aviculas, Solens, and Arcas. Such would-be marine fossils have been brought to me from the shore opposite to Obydos, near Santarem, and I have readily recognised them for what they truly are, fresh-water shells of the family of Naiades. I have myself collected specimens of these shells in the clay beds along the banks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... names to posterity. Maevius is as well known as Virgil, and Gildon will be as well known as you if his name gets into your verses; and as for the difference between good and bad fame, it is a mere trifle.' The advice was far too good to be taken. But what has happened? The petty would-be Popes, but for the real Pope, would have been entirely forgotten. As it is, only their names survive in the index to the Dunciad; their indecencies and dastardly blockheadisms are as dead as Queen Anne; and if the historian or the moralist seeks an illustration of the ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... Apes in the tree-top, that they may return the throw with gold cocoa-nuts. The young lady has her degree of bliss when her waist is entwined by "Dear CHAWLES," who soothes her troubled spirit with the tender melody of "Red as a beet is she,"—alluding to her would-be rival. The nice young man has his degree of bliss when he chews a tooth-pick—poor goose! (not the nice young man, but the fowl which gave the quill,)—and is given a smile by a dark-eyed female ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... "get out with it, you thief and would-be murderer. Use it to get as far from here as you can, for as true as there is a heaven above us, if you ever interfere with me or—mine—again, I'll shoot you at ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... an old lord about London in those days,—or, rather, one who was an old Liberal but a young lord,—one Lord Mount Thistle, who had sat in the Cabinet, and had lately been made a peer when his place in the Cabinet was wanted. He was a pompous, would-be important, silly old man, well acquainted with all the traditions of his party, and perhaps, on that account, useful,—but a bore, and very apt to meddle when he was not wanted. Lady Glencora, on the day after her dinner-party, whispered into his ear that Lord ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... in Company C, Fifty-ninth, was ordered to surrender. He let his would-be captor come close to him; when he struck him with the butt of ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... class of girl I have sometimes noticed with amused regret—I dare say you have too—though she is by no means so objectionable as the other kind I spoke of. She is a would-be child of nature. She has no thoughtfulness or weight about her; she is an engaging kitten who exists on the rather inadequate stock-in-trade of nice eyes; she is quite irresponsible and useless, and tells you so, in an ingenuous way, for which her nearest and dearest long to box her ears! I ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... appearance are very lady-like, and she has an untarnished reputation, despite the difficulties of her position. No one understands better how to keep all the gallants that hover about her at a respectful distance; she treats these would-be suitors for her favour with a cold, reserved, yet perfect politeness that ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... must change all that. Young people were not born to assume heavy responsibilities, whereas older ones accept them as a matter of course. And that's just what I have come way down here to try to do for my sweet niece," ended Mrs. Stewart smiling with would-be fascinating coyness. The smile would have been somewhat less complacent could she have heard old Jerome's comment as he placed upon the pantry shelf the fingerbowls which he had ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... located one would-be killer behind a mass of splintered planking that once had been a wall. He set the wood afire by a blaster-bolt and then viciously sent other bolts all around the man it had sheltered when he fled from the flames. He could ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... quick to take the alarm, had hastened thither to ferret out the cause. Vain his effort to communicate with his one victim. He was at his desk, and a vigilant ex-sergeant-major of cavalry scowled at the would-be intruder and told him visitors could not enter the clerks' rooms. Vain his effort to extract news along the corridors. No man seemed to know why so many of them were there. Perplexed, he rushed back to his associates, the strike-leaders. ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... the man so call his wife, that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, his Emily, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... a destructiveness which nothing would satisfy out the immediate advent of the final conflagration. Gouty brothers whose own toes were a burden to them, and dropsical sisters with swelled legs, hobbled from street to street, laying would-be miraculous hands on each other, on teething children, on the dumb and blind, on foundered horses and mangy dogs even, or whatsoever other sickly creature happened to get under their silly noses. The doctors lost half their practice ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... busy now?" asked William, as he fondly caressed the novel weapon with which he had recently harassed the would-be destroyers of the camp equipment, as though loth to lay it down for ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... about a hundred yards ahead. A fellow had made a cut with his dagger at a lady's purse, and had been promptly knocked down by her cavalier. At the sound of the would-be robber's cry a dozen other rascals had rushed to his aid, and from the narrow lanes and alleys a horde of ruffians—male and female—had been vomited. They set upon the lady and her companion with cudgels and knives, and the gentleman was already lying ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... year! Old Father Time deputes me here before ye, Not for to preach, but tell his simple story: The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me say, "You're one year older this important day." If wiser too—he hinted some suggestion, But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question; And with a would-be roguish leer and wink, He bade me on you press this ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... hot, and the roads dusty. In order to cause my horse as little fatigue as possible, and not to chafe his back, I led him by the bridle, my doing which brought upon me a shower of remarks, jests, and would-be witticisms from the drivers and front outside passengers of sundry stagecoaches, which passed me in one direction or the other. In this way I proceeded till considerably past noon, when I felt myself very fatigued, and my horse appeared no less so; and it is probable ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Elizabeth rode on with her ladies behind her, her gentlemen beside her. As she passed slowly, the would-be regicide swayed and fell from his horse, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... more the attitude of certain men who travel under easy conditions, and who belittle the achievements of the real explorers of, the real adventures in, the great wilderness. The impostors and romancers among explorers or would-be explorers and wilderness wanderers have been unusually prominent in connection with South America (although the conspicuous ones are not South Americans, by the way); and these are fit subjects for condemnation and derision. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... courtesy—of good manners as distinct from merely fashionable or cultured manners—is very keen: in kindness and good-will they have nothing to learn from anybody, and most of their "superiors" and would-be teachers might learn from them. Nor would I disparage their improved housekeeping, as though it had no significance. It may open no doorway for them into middle-class civilization, but I think it puts their spirits, as it were, on the watch for opportunities of personal development. ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... Hagen's rude fare, and the constant exposure of the past few years, had so developed his strength and courage that he now flew into a Berserker rage,[1] flung thirty men one after another into the sea, and so terrified his would-be master that he promised to bear him and the three maidens in safety to his father's court. [Footnote 1: See Guerber's Myths of Northern ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... becoming a member of its body.... Would it be believed that these scientific charlatans succeeded in underrating my discoveries throughout Europe, in exciting every society of savants against me, and in closing against me all the newspapers?"[3122]—Naturally, the would-be-persecuted man defends himself, that is to say, he attacks. Naturally, as he is the aggressor, he is repulsed and put down, and, after creating imaginary enemies, he creates real ones, especially in politics where, on principle, he daily preaches insurrection ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... permit the dearly-bought results of the Civil War to be nullified by any change in the Constitution. So long as the Fifteenth Amendment stands, the rights of colored citizens are ultimately secure. There were would-be despots in England after the granting of Magna Charta; but it outlived them all, and the liberties of the English people are secure. There was slavery in this land after the Declaration of Independence, yet the faces of those who love liberty ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... in prospective, for example, might make himself familiar with the medical properties of such plants as are within his reach; he might likewise examine the bones of an ape, and thus, by analogy, become acquainted with the framework of the human body. The would-be lawyer might, in the same way, avail himself of the library to obtain an insight into those social mysteries that bind men in communities and necessitate human laws for the preservation of peace and order. Thus, by directing our thoughts ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... an interview which is memorable to at least one person; and not least notable for the friendship Mr. Plimsoll showed towards his would-be executioner! The story was told to me about two months after the interview occurred by the captain himself. It is very odd that even one man, especially a shipmaster, should have been found disagreeing with a ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... were made for dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and her table ready spread; with an exulting defiance that rendered her more charming than she was before. And so she merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, one by one, as they passed out, with a comical indifference, enough to make them go and drown themselves immediately if they were her admirers—and they must have been so, more or less; they couldn't help it. And yet indifference was not her character. Oh no! For presently there came a ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... a German Count, if I remember rightly, and, like most German Counts, had not much money; and her father, as fathers will when proposed to by impecunious would-be sons-in-law, refused his consent. The Count then went abroad to try and make, or at all events improve, his fortune. He went to America, and there he prospered. In a year or two he came back, tolerably rich—to ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... sing a meaning lay, And teachest wisdom, in sweet poetry. But whence, my fair philosopher, thy lore, Hath God bestowed such deep laid knowledge on A light and playsome girl, whose pranks and wiles Have quite bewitched my would-be firmer soul. Methinks thou singest well to-night; adieu, And may pure angels bring ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley
... German humbly besought the new Messiah to announce the dreadful catastrophe to his fellow-countrymen in the German language, as they did not understand English, and it seemed a pity that they should be damned merely on that account. The would-be Saviour in reply confessed with great candour that he did not know German. "What!" retorted the German, "you the Son of God, and don't speak all languages, and don't even know German? Come, come, you are a knave, a hypocrite, and a madman. Bedlam is the place for you." The spectators laughed, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to gain 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
... Lawyers and citizens generally in the same category as to age entered the office of the Judge Advocate General or the ranks of the Four Minute Men or the American Protective League which rendered great service to the country in exposing German propaganda and in placing would-be slackers in military service. Bankers led the mighty Liberty Loan and War Savings Stamp drives and unselfishly placed the resources of their institutions at the service ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... which Carlos Santander had shown himself at the Acordada, only at an early hour, the would-be Emperor was seated in his apartment of the palace in which he was wont to give audience to ordinary visitors. He had got through the business affairs of the morning, dismissed his Ministers, and was alone, when one of the aides-de-camp in attendance entered with ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... minister by president; deputy prime ministers appointed by president election results: Sellapan Rama (S. R.) NATHAN appointed president in August 2005 after Presidential Elections Committee disqualified three other would-be candidates ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... which, under the abortive attempts of the Saxon minister, M. de Beust,* gave a timid reminder to Germany of what her unity had been and might once again be. Each incident, however local or however remote, formed a feature of the whole; between 1854 and 1870, you cannot ignore the would-be secession of the Southern Confederates, which ended in making "all America" the counterpoise to our older world—neither dare you neglect the Indian meeting whence England issued, clad in moral as in political glory, and gave ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... sovereign, while I am naught but a poor, much-tormented man, who has more titles than lands, more debts than money, and whose nation consists not of obedient subjects but of obstinate brawlers, a mob of would-be politicians and starved-out people. No! no!" he cried, interrupting himself, "no! I shall not give my son so much joy. I shall not do him the pleasure of yielding up the power to him, and being thrown aside myself like a squeezed lemon. No, Elector I shall remain, and my lordly son shall submit ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... monsters, sonnets, a very chaos of thoughts and of shapes, in which the plan of the artist is inextricably lost, which mean everything and nothing, but out of whose unintelligible network of lines and curves have issued masterpieces, and which only the foolish or the would-be philosophical would exchange for some intelligible, hopelessly finished and finite illustration out of a Bible ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... confident would-be conqueror was reduced to trembling and whining now. "M-maybe he's hungry. Oh, ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... his lips—"and, Jonas," she stepped forward, and he backed—his glassy eyes on her face, "and, Jonas," she said, "look here, I have this stone. With the like of this you sought to kill me in the moor." She raised it above her head, "you would-be murderer of your wife and your child—I am free from you." She took another step forward—he reeled back and vanished—disappeared instantly from her sight with a scream—instantly and absolutely, as when the ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... had expected, it was not long before two stealthy figures came tiptoeing in, and were taken red-handed in the very act of constructing an apple-pie bed. The vials of wrath which descended upon the would-be practical jokers were enough to damp the spirits of even such madcaps as Raymonde and Aveline. After all, monitresses are monitresses, and to affront them is rather like twisting a lion's tail. Miss ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... the advent of Meg's would-be sweetheart that frightened Jock Forrest away, or again he might have been in the act of going in any case. Jock was a quiet man who walked sedately and took counsel of no one. He was seldom seen talking to any man, never to a woman—least ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... continued} I do not, however, wish to doubt that the sounds may occasionally subserve this end. But the conclusion at which I have arrived, viz. that the rattling serves as a warning to would-be devourers, appears to me much more probable, as it connects together various classes of facts. If this snake had acquired its rattle and the habit of rattling, for the sake of attracting prey, it does not ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... neighboring pueblo cigar-cases were made out of this nito. They are not of much use as an article of commerce, and usually are only made to order. To obtain a dozen a would-be purchaser must apply to as many individuals, who, at the shortest, will condescend to finish one in a few months. The stalk of the fern, which is about as thick as a lucifer match, is split into four strips. The workman then takes a strip in his left hand, and, with his thumb ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... rocky promontory, and peered curiously down into the black valley, where the charred remains of his ancestral home are to be found to this day. Murato was asleep—a silent group of stone-roofed houses, one of which, however, had seen the birth of a man notorious enough in his day—Fieschi, the would-be assassin of Louis Philippe. Every village in this island has, it would seem, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... great mare, and sat in the beech-tree, was at present their guest—as she often was, in a fluctuating or intermittent fashion. She lived in the neighbourhood, but was more at Mortgrange than at home; one consequence of which was, that, as would-be-clever Miss Malliver phrased it, the house was very much B. Wyldered. Nor was that the first house the little lady had bewildered, for she was indeed an importation from a new colony rather startling to sedate old England. Her father, a younger son, had unexpectedly ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... murder," Bell said, sternly. "My dear fellow, Van Sneck was nearly done to death in yonder conservatory, and his would-be assassin was Reginald Henson." ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... way to the jail. He found it unguarded. The deputy had gone to find the cause of the commotion at the hotel. The steel bars, moreover, were sufficient to retain the prisoner and keep out would-be rescuers. ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... but also with regard to the human race. In his famous article on "The Method and Results of Ethnology," Professor Huxley made this declaration:—"There are those who represent the most numerous, respectable, and would-be orthodox of the public, and who may be called 'Adamites,' pure and simple. They believe that Adam was made out of earth somewhere in Asia, about six thousand years ago; that Eve was modelled from one of his ribs; and that the progeny of these two having been reduced to the eight persons ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... historians who have told an interesting story. He would laugh at the idea that he must verify the notes of his author and read the original documents, for he has confidence that the interpretation is accurate and truthful. This is all that I ask of the would-be historian. For the sake of going to the bottom of things in his own special study, let him take his physical and natural science on trust and he may well begin to do this during his college course. As a manner of doing this, there occur to me three interesting ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... explained 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
... drawing in all the new truth and all the new power which are afforded by this new wave of inspiration which has been sent into the world by God, and which the human race, deluded and bemused by the would-be clever, has received with such perverse and obstinate incredulity. When they have done all this, they will find not only that they are leading the world with an obvious right to the leadership, but, in addition, that they have come round ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... baby!" he called in a moment, plainly ravished with the nature of his would-be assassin. He knew why the stone had come—only too well. "You hateful ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... other Roman writers the subject is only treated by way of allusion or illustration. Martial, however, provides, among other passages, what may perhaps be entitled to rank as the earliest notice of private fishery rights—the epigram Ad Piscatorem, which warns would-be poachers from casting a line in the Baian lake. Pliny the elder devoted the ninth book of his Natural History to fishes and water-life, and Plautus, Cicero, Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, Pliny the younger and Suetonius all allude to angling here and there. Agricultural writers, too, such ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... overtook a German horseman, so thinking to 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 machine. ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... the part of the natives was by this archer, who deliberately drew an arrow from over his shoulder and fitted it against the string of his bow. The fact that the missile was undoubtedly coated at the end with a virus more deadly than that of the rattlesnake or cobra was enough to render the would-be friend uncomfortable and to increase ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... have undergone such a rapid change, for the number of settlers would have remained relatively small. But, already in the eleventh century, the "porters" and "emporia" proved a centre of attraction, not only to discontented serfs and would-be merchants, but to skilled artisans, mostly clothmakers in Flanders and metal-workers on the Meuse. From the early days of the Menapii the inhabitants of Northern Belgium had a reputation for working the wool of their sheep. Under Charlemagne, it had already become their principal industry. In ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... here 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 ripening, ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... grumbled and protested; But finding soon how placidly Log rested Prone in the pool with mighty little motion, Of danger they abandoned the wild notion, Finding it easy for a Frog to jog On with a kind King Log. But in the fulness of the time, there came A would-be monarch—Legion his fit name; A Plebs-appointed Autocrat, Stork-throated, Goggle-eyed, Paul-Pry-coated; A poking, peering, pompous, petty creature, A Bumble-King, with beak for its chief feature. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the drink, the drives, the popularity as he comes and goes, even his step-mother's false, selfish, ostentatious gifts. But she, too, begins to feel something of the jealousy of that other divine, would-be mistress, and by way of a last effort to bring him to a better mind in regard to them both, conducts him (immeasurable privilege!) ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... religion would have sounded quite clever and advanced in the early 'nineties. To-day they have a dreadfully warmed-up flavour. That is the great delusion of you would-be advanced satirists; you imagine you can sit down comfortably for a couple of decades saying daring and startling things about the age you live in, which, whatever other defects it may have, is certainly not standing still. The whole of the Sherard Blaw school of ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... an unaccountable opposition even from its subjects. The Dutch was combated by those connected with education. It was ridiculed by the Walloon population. Since the independence of Belgium, the mouvement flamand has been felt more than once by the would-be French rulers. In 1841, a Congress was held in Ghent, where all the members of the Government spoke in Flemish; energetic protests were addressed to the Chamber of Representatives, all with little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and there, perhaps, a straggling beam of genius broke through the mental twilight, in the shape of, "Some Account of the poet, Burns;" a Rustique by Bloomfield, or an elegant sonnet by Bowles or Charlotte Smith. The rest of would-be-sonneteers, tragedy-writers, and essayists, have long ago found, with their mediocrities, a congenial oblivion in "the tomb of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... infinitely richer for this fact. Their failure itself is made by it more bearable than the failure of those others who act the vulgarian and demand so little of life that even that little escapes them. No world-stains on these who are, at least, would-be lovers. They stand mistaken but irreproachable. It was neither their fault nor love's, and "life more abundant" comes to them even with ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... in digging, shipping, and planting in the permanent location. The vicissitudes which befall the production of the northern hickories are often so great as to discourage nurserymen who otherwise would grow them. This is an unfortunate fact but a real one, as the would-be purchaser often learns when he attempts to buy named varieties of hickories. The situation with the pecan is much better, due perhaps to the greater demand for such trees but also to the greater ease of propagation in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... and duets, who, wherever there is the chance of a moment's hearing, are ready to attempt their seductions upon our ears to the prejudice of our pockets. All these we must pass over with this brief mention upon the present occasion; our business being with their numerous antitheses and would-be rivals—the incarnate nuisances who fill the air with discordant and fragmentary mutilations and distortions of heaven-born melody, to the distraction of educated ears and the perversion ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... called upon to denounce nests as the dark places of the earth, and in laying down our human moral laws we have always to be aware of forgetting the fundamental biological relationship of parent and child to which all such moral laws must conform. To some would-be parents that necessity may seem hard. In such a case it is well for them to remember that there is no need to become parents and that we live in an age when it is not difficult to avoid becoming a parent. The world is not dying for lack of parents. ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... salaries "On the higher scale," as they say in the Courts. It is curious that, when I explain to my creditors this most promising source of prospective income, they don't seem to see it! But creditors always were a purblind race.—WOULD-BE LEGISLATOR. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 18, 1893 • Various
... write as the spirit moves me," said Florence, in a would-be flippant voice, "and Tom likes my writing; he says ...
— The Time of Roses • L. T. Meade
... thinks fit To find a fault or two with what we've writ, When, unrequested, we again go o'er A passage we recited once, before, When we complain, forsooth, our laboured strokes, Our dexterous turns, are lost on careless folks, When we expect, so soon as you're informed That ours are hearts by would-be genius warmed, You'll send for us instanter, end our woes With a high hand, and make ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... salmon aboard The Bedford Castle I will explain anything. Meanwhile the police may go to the devil!" The cool assurance of the young man's tone roused his would-be ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... subordinate to nature that nature assumes moral responsibility. When Macleod of Dare commits murder and then suicide, we accept it as the result of climatic influences; and the tranquil-conscienced Hamish, the would-be homicide, but obeys the call of the winds. Especially in the delightful romances of Skye, Mr. Black reproduces the actual speech and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... can never be needed and will never be permitted. They tell the candidate how to instruct himself, how to teach others, how to do all things comprised in the business—and they close the door against all would-be competitors, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to try a new form of Government. Of course," and here Alec beamed on them most affably, "there are other alternatives. You may elect to put me in jail, or throw me into the Danube, or swing me from a gibbet as a warning to all would-be monarchs and other malefactors. But there is one thing you cannot do. You can never persuade me to wade to a throne through the blood of innocent people! And that is why I am here, and not in the company of the wretched conspirators now skulking behind ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... third year where they were not suspected. The child, unnoticed, hears all sorts of things said, seizes on this or that expression, and weeks after brings into connection, fitly or unfitly, the memory-images, drawing immediately from an insufficient number of particular cases a would-be general conclusion. ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... luggage through the customs, saw to passports, fought the battles of all the stations, and afterwards acted as guide through the streets of the great city. By a curious irony, two verse-makers and admirers of George Sand made it possible for the would-be man of action to find his way. The poetess, recalling the trip afterwards, wrote that she liked the prophet more than she expected, finding his "bitterness only melancholy, and his scorn sensibility." Browning himself continued through life to regard Carlyle with "affectionate reverence." ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... 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 to them than ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... History, and the physical and political geography of the globe, besides a lot of lesser "ologies," of no interest to anyone save my coach and myself, but all of which were included in the list of subjects laid down by the Admiralty as incumbent for every would-be naval cadet to acquire, were forced into my unfortunate cranium day and night without the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... world forgets those they do not see every day and everywhere. How miserable is the fine lady's lot who cannot forget the world, and who is forgot by the world in a moment! How much more miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working her way up in the world with care and pains! By her, every the slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fashion, is marked and felt with jealous anxiety, and with ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... said the unfeeling Bickley, "or you will be late for your appointment and put your would-be ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... The crowd of would-be annuitants grew so thick about them that for some time they could move neither forward nor backward. Graham noticed what appeared to him to be a high proportion of women among the speculators, and was reminded again of the economic independence of their sex. They seemed remarkably well able to ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... the law—to buy his son out of jail. Sooner than his daughter should know that her father was one of those who sometimes wore the mask of the Red Rider, Ranson, for all he cared, could go to jail, or to hell. With this ultimatum in his mind, Cahill confronted his would-be son-in-law with a ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... Nick Ellhorn reached the little canyon in the Oro Fino mountains they saw that the two would-be kidnappers must have been there since Wellesly's departure for three of the four horses were quietly grazing, with hobbled feet, beside the rivulet. They speculated upon what the absence of the fourth horse might mean while they staked ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... water-view and fish-pond, fond of long walks, and preferred the simple life. In his rooms were many souvenirs of early travel. His walls were covered with the finest engravings and paintings from the best American artists. He was too willing to be imposed upon by young authors and would-be poets. He said: "People expect too much of me, altogether too much." That Sunday was his last before his address on Mazzini in Central Park. He finished with the hot sun over his head, and walking across ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... constitutional rights of Englishmen, whether resident in America or England. But while Lord Hillsborough foolishly and vainly dictated to the several colonies to treat the colony of Massachusetts with contempt, he advanced a step further in his would-be domination over Massachusetts itself by directing Governor Barnard to order the House of Representatives, under a threat of dissolution, to rescind the resolution which they had adopted to send the circular to the representative Assemblies of other colonies. Lord Hillsborough, in a letter ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of thy Lord and the statutes, which I command thee this day, for thine own good?" "Is this a small matter?" asks the Talmud, in evident surprise at the hugeness of the program. When the would-be proselyte came to Shammai and requested him to sum up the entire Torah in one principle, he received no better treatment than he deserved, when he was made to take to his heels. That Hillel did not rebuff him and gave him the principle, "What is hateful to thee do not do unto thy neighbor," proves ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... much. Neither the twilight obscurity, nor that caused by the overshadowing trees, can prevent his canine companion from discovering the whereabouts of the would-be assassin. On hearing the shot the hound has harked back; and, at some twenty paces off, brought up beside a huge trunk, where it stands fiercely baying, as if at a bear. The tree is buttressed, with "knees" several feet ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... anchor-watch and forecastle yarn, who had fought the gang to its last man and yet come off victor. The swift vision fired his blood and nerved his arm, and under its obsession he stood up to his would-be captors with all the dogged pluck for which he was famous when facing the enemy ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... that is very becoming in a young man. But, bless you, my dear sir, you are mistaken in your premises. I do not really wish to part the mother and children. If you will give me your attention, I will explain—" began the would-be client. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... a volume which is simply bubbling over with dry wit and good-natured humor, told as only this Prince of American Humorists can tell it. Here are tales of country newspaper life, political life, trials of would-be inventors, hardships of a book-agent, domestic fits and misfits, perils of a ship-wrecked man, and a hundred others, warranted to make even the most sedate laugh. Full of illustrations just ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... lot with theirs, and he was profoundly grateful to them for having accepted him as one of themselves. But for their generosity, his weighted body would have been already lying at the bottom of the canal, and he was not just now inclined to criticise the mental gifts of those would-be conspirators who had so unexpectedly forgiven him for ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... at once! 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 composite ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... had shortly before become 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 ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... Tresham, I will marry you at once. It will be the best thing, under the circumstances, I am sure. Follow me, sir." As they went along a narrow covered way, he called a servant and gave her an order, and then opening a door ushered the would-be bride and bridegroom into the chapel, and ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... A humiliating day for the stiff-necked old Squire of Stagholme; for he was introduced to many new relatives, who, if they could have bought up Stagholme and its master, were but poorly equipped with the letter "h." The bourgeois ostentation and would-be high-toned graciousness of the ladies, jarred on his nerves as harshly as did the personal appearance of ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... and once more, sick at heart, I began to think that my case was hopeless, because I had not grasped the meaning of the message, which, for aught I knew, might mean that I was to leave my tent as soon as it was dark, to trust my would-be rescuers. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... two epithets I take it he deserved the second more than the first. His Protestantising tendencies might, I think, have been more accurately described as non-Catholicising. But people are very apt to judge in this matter after the fashion of the would-be dramatist, who, on being assured that he had no genius for tragedy, concluded that he must therefore have one for comedy. The Duke's Protestantism, I suspect, limited itself to, and showed itself in, his dislike and resistance ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... had ever been before. "You shall give way in the end, mind that," was the last admonition he received from one of the bigger fellows, as he dragged himself to his bed, sobbing for pain, and aching with disquietude of heart. "The sooner it is the better; for you little muffs and would-be saints ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... representing a jockey at full gallop; cut-away coat, corduroy breeches, and boots with tops of a chalky white. Yet, withal, not the air and walk of a genuine born and bred sporting man, even of the vulgar order. Something about him which reveals the pretender. A would-be hawk with a pigeon's liver,—a would-be sportsman ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... question of suicide, as an enemy to longevity: In discussing the subject, many members of the club maintain, that it is an imperative duty for them to give the world a new cure for suicide. They would offer its would-be victims, such a tempting array of the meanings, purposes and opportunities, for gaining wisdom, which may crown every rightly conducted, harmoniously environed life; making it so busy, so absorbing, and so happy; that there would be no room, for the morbid hallucination of a suicidal ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... the other buildings were already deserted by their would-be salvors, who had filled the streets with piles of books and valuables waiting to be carried away. Then occurred a terrible phenomenon, which had once before in such disasters paralyzed the efforts ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... born of his knowledge of the young lady's kind heart, Hannibal now turned his attention toward her. He begged her to plead with his would-be executioner to give him one more chance for his life, and reiterated his promises to cease meddling with all of their affairs if this was granted. As he spoke Daisy crept nearer to Roseleaf's side, and when he paused for a moment to gain breath, she ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... 'Tis true, to a would-be descendant from Kings, Parish-registers sometimes are troublesome things; As oft, when the vision is near brought about, Some goblin, in shape of a grocer, grins out; Or some barber, perhaps, with my ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... is as easy for the rich to enter the kingdom of Art as for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle." Leaving her pink with offense, he turned his back and, shaking off other would-be admirers, ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale |
