"Wile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an unromantic style, With borrowed colour and curl, With fixed mechanical smile, With many a hackneyed wile, With ungrammatical lips, And corns that ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... gave the sign When first to cut the cable. Him they nam'd Eurypilus: so sings my tragic strain, In which majestic measure well thou know'st, Who know'st it all. That other, round the loins So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot, Practis'd in ev'ry slight of magic wile. "Guido Bonatti see: Asdente mark, Who now were willing, he had tended still The thread and cordwain; and too late repents. "See next the wretches, who the needle left, The shuttle and the spindle, and became Diviners: baneful witcheries they wrought With images and herbs. But onward ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the grace and the Holy Spirit; and that Jesus Christ succours them by his spirit in all temptations, reaches to them his hand, (provided they be willing to engage, ask his assistance, and are not wanting to themselves,) supports and strengthens them: so, that they cannot be led away by any wile or violence of Satan, or snatched out of Christ's hands, as he says himself, St. John x. My sheep shall no man pluck out of my hands. For the rest, if it be asked whether these may not through negligence let go the confidence they had from the beginning, (Heb. iii. ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... other five [examiners] 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 ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... But it was only to be a last refuge of course. Helen withdrew to the dressing-room, laid herself on her bed, and began to compass how to meet and circumvent the curate, so as by an innocent cunning to wile from him on false pretences what spiritual balm she might so gain for the torn heart and conscience of her brother. There was no doubt it would be genuine, and the best to be had, seeing George Bascombe, who was honesty itself, judged the curate an honest man. But how was it to ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... 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 a ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... South would ten years ago have put a bandage on his wound and gone about his business, but now he tossed under his patchwork quilt, and Brother Spencer expressed grave doubts for his recovery. With his counsel unavailable Wile McCager, by common consent, assumed something like the powers of a regent and took upon himself the duties to which Samson ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... easier and more consonant with the Puritan temper to abolish a practice than to elevate it and clear away abuses: and the half-instructed mind is taught with fatal facility to condemn use and abuse in a lump, to believe carol-singing a wile of the Evil One because Bill once went around carol-singing and came ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... pious souls who, in strictest confidence, went so far as to hazard the opinion that the lady was not quite "canny"; she might, they thought, quite possibly turn out to be an imp of the Evil One sent with her gold to wile Bryan's soul to perdition. The belief was not more fantastic than many another that prevailed at that day, and later; and the fact that she was never known to go to mass, nor had been seen to cross the threshold of a sacred building, lent some weight to it. This was the kind of "clash" ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... Grandier was calumnious and false, and that all her actions had been done at the instigation of the Franciscan Pere Lactance, the director, Mignon, and the Carmelite brothers. Pere Lactance, not in the least taken aback, declared that her confession was a fresh wile of the devil to save her master Grandier. She then made an urgent appeal to the bishop and to M. de Laubardemont, asking to be sequestered and placed in charge of other priests than those who had destroyed her soul, by making her bear false witness against ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... It was the first service I ever did for him." It may have been an innocent wile to anchor him fast there and helpless. . . . At any rate she knelt, and drew off his shoes and carried them to a little distance. "Next, my lord shall eat," she said; and having rinsed her hands in the stream ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... 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 ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... wi' the bonny glint o' youth in my e'en, and little I dreamed I'd ever be tellin' ye this, an auld, lanely, rudas wife! Weel, Mr. Erchie, there was a lad cam' courtin' me, as was but naetural. Mony had come before, and I would nane o' them. But this yin had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift and the bees frae the foxglove bells. Deary me, but it's lang syne! Folk have dee'd sinsyne and been buried, and are forgotten, and bairns been born and got merrit and got bairns o' their ain. Sinsyne woods have been plantit, and have grawn ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their lovesick tone. Save one, they all were odious to the fair; A handsome youth, with smart engaging air; But whose attentions to the belle were vain; In spite of arts, his aim he could not gain; His name was Atis, known to love and arms, Who grudged no pains, could he possess her charms. Each wile he tried, and if he'd kept to sighs, No doubt the source is one that never dries; But often diff'rent with expense 'tis found; His wealth was wasted rapidly around He wretched grew; at length for debt he fled, And ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... like the one just narrated that old Quatreaux used to wile away the time, as we threaded the intricate ditches of the marsh in his canoe, so hedged in by the tall reeds that our horizon was within paddle's length of us. With that presumptive clairvoyance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... there 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 king ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... stirrin' ma blood tonight, On de night of de young new year, Wile de camp is warm an' de fire is bright, An' de bottle is close at han'— Out on de reever de nort' win' blow, Down on de valley is pile de snow, But w'at do we care so long we know We 're ...
— The Voyageur and Other Poems • William Henry Drummond
... untranslatable or to be translated only by guess work!" [234] One of their adventures—with a shaykh named Salameh—reads like a tale out of The Arabian Nights. Having led them by devious paths into an uninhabited wild, Salameh announced that, unless they made it worth his wile to do otherwise, he intended to leave them there to perish, and it took twenty-five pounds to satisfy the rogue's cupidity. Palmer, however, was of opinion that an offence of this kind ought by no means to ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... go to the zaguan. See whether he be asleep. Go up boldly. If asleep, well; if not enter into conversation with him. Get him to open the little door and let you out. Wile him upon the street, and by some means keep him there. I shall lead ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... Antonio angrily, "you need not begin to speak your dark sentences again to enchant me by some devilish wile or other. My heart is rent, you must speak, or"—— "Stop," interrupted she, "no threats—am I not your faithful nurse, who tended you?"—— Without waiting to hear what the old woman had got further to say, he picked himself up and ran away swiftly. From a distance ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... catch Dame Fortune's golden smile, Assiduous wait upon her; And gather gear by ev'ry wile That's justified by honour; Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train-attendant; But for the glorious privilege ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... is a smile But the hypocrite's wile, To mask detestation, or fear; Give me the soft sigh, Whilst the soul-telling eye Is dimm'd, for a time, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... crestfallen. "Don't come near me," she added, irefully, "you are disloyal cowards, and I doom you to exile till I want you. I am infinite in resources as well as this recreant man, and come he shall. Mrs. Snowdon, would you mind asking Mr. Treherne to suggest something to wile away the rest of this evening? We are in despair, and can think of nothing, and you are ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... tall And firm as a castle wall; On his broad 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 Cromwell's ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... hour Arrives of long-contested Power; Each crafty wile thine ends to aid, Party and principle betray'd; The subtle speech, the plan profound, Pursued for years, success has crown'd; To-night the Vote upon whose tongue, The nicely-poised Division hung, Was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... congenial, and a mind replete With ready artifice and bold deceit, To suit a tyrant's ends, however base, In Christiern's friendship had secured his place. His were the senator's and courtier's parts, And all the statesman's magazine of arts; His, each expedient, each all-powerful wile, To thwart a foe, or win a monarch's smile: The nicely-plann'd and well-pursued intrigue; The smooth evasion of the hollow league; The specious argument, that subtly strays Thro' winding sophistry's protracted ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... the fourth is fast going by, since she 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 ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... had nothing further to say, and it suited her to remain silent for the moment, while she dried her eyes, and recovered her composure, and prepared herself to carry on the battle with a smile. She would carry on the battle, using every wile she knew, straining every nerve to be victorious, encountering any and all dangers, and yet she had no definite aim before her. She herself did not know what she would be at. At this period of her career she did not want to marry her cousin,—having ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... beauty drooped in prisoned bower, None ever soothed his most 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 her heart; Which ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... 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 ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... magnificently attired, but in the robes of peace, with a circlet of gold and gems enwreathing his black velvet cap, his countenance breathing this day but the kindly emotions of his more youthful nature, unshadowed by the wile and intrigue of after-years, King Ferdinand looked the mighty monarch, whose talents raised his country from obscurity, and bade her stand forth among the first of European nations. But tumultuary as were the shouts with which ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... believers with unbelievers appears in the tares; but I think these are in either case incidental and subordinate, while the leading idea of the first is the reception given to the gospel by different classes of men, and the leading idea of the second is the wile of the devil in his effort to destroy the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... her little foot held she, As to depart with speed; The madhouse man smiled pleasantly To see the wile succeed. ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... more of it; a good bit more in which I stubbornly asserted my innocence while Whitredge used every trick and wile known to his craft to entrap me into admitting that I was guilty, in the act if not in ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... views stretched wide on every hand, Far, far the eye could reach, o'er sea and land, And in the glories of a summer's day Their children, by the ocean breezes fanned, Would gambol long beneath the noontide ray, And with bright laughter wile the long, ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... Bill got home from business that first night, the Deacon explained that every time he lit a two-bit cigar he was depriving a Zulu of twenty-five helpful little tracts which might have made a better man of him; that fast horses were a snare and plug hats a wile of the Enemy; that the Board of Trade was the Temple of Belial and the brokers on ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... me clean down to the ground," he said. "It's wile an' stratagem which I like. Lead on to this ford, Henry, an' we'll lay down an' rest beside it till they ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... tale. He said that far in the south five white scouts and foresters, two of whom were only boys in years, although one of the boys was the largest and strongest of the five, had kept the Indians from destroying the white settlements in Kain-tuck-ee. By trick and device, by wile and stratagem, they had turned back many an attack. It was not their numbers, but the cunning they used and the evil spirits they summoned to their aid that made them so powerful and dangerous. Until the five were removed the Indians ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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 God. ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... be respected; if an error has been committed, the best way is, if possible, to find out that it was no error after all, or at least to treat it as such. In no point does ancient comedy stand further apart from modern ideas than in its view of married life; the wile is invariably the dull legal partner, love for whom is hardly thought of, while the sentiment of love (if indeed it be worthy of the name) is reserved for the Bacchis and Thais, who, in the most popular plays turn out to be Attic ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... Intend to act on the Square in regard to that little Mater I have aranged Things so that I ant got to stop with you but I'll drop in onct in a wile to keep up a show for a Drink—respy yours, ...
— Jeff Briggs's Love Story • Bret Harte
... that council, surely he did; But the wile has now succeeded—he wanders from his path; The cloud its lightning sendeth, and its bolt the stout oak rendeth, And the arbutus back bendeth in the whirlwind, as a lath! Now and then the moon looks out, but, alas! its pale face hath A dreadful ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... my spear, He shrank. Ay, with his valour was there blent Discretion. Thou thy thoughts are deathward set, Who dar'st defy me to the battle, me, A mightier far than thou! Thou canst not say That friendship of our fathers thee shall screen; Nor me thy gifts shall wile to let thee pass Scatheless from war, as once did Tydeus' son. Though thou didst 'scape his fury, will not I Suffer thee to return alive from war. Ha, in thy many helpers dost thou trust Who with thee, like so many ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... more silent than ever now, to answer the inquiries and listen to the sad forebodings of the neighbors, who came to offer help and sympathy; for all loved little Button-Rose, and grieved to think of any blight falling on the pretty blossom. To wile away the long hours, Cicely fell to dusting the empty rooms, setting closets and drawers to rights, and keeping all fresh and clean, to the great relief of the old cousins, who felt that everything would go to destruction in their absence. She read and sewed now, having no heart for jaunting about; ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... moment; and if 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 was not ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... when't was done, we didn't count it dear. Why, law an' order, honor, civil right, Ef they ain't wuth it, wut is wuth a fight? I'm older 'n you: the plough, the axe, the mill, All kinds o' labor an' all kinds o' skill, Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat's claw, Ef't warn't for thet slow critter, 'stablished law; Onsettle thet, an' all the world goes whiz, A screw is loose in everythin' there is: Good buttresses once settled, don't you fret An' stir 'em: take a bridge's word ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... from the purple waves of the Mediterranean. It and the peak Abyla, on the opposite (African) coast, were styled by the Greeks, in their poetical language, "the pillars of Hercules;" whilst the strait between is said to have been executed by the same man of muscle, to wile away the tedium of ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... she met him, though she smiled no more, She look'd a 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 ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... the house of Yellett, undoubtedly filled a long-felt want. Presiding over a school of six-imp power for a week, however, had humbled Mary to the point of seriously considering a letter to the home government, meekly asking for return transportation. But this was before feminine wile had struggled with feminine vanity, and feminine wile won the day. School still continued to open at six, from which early and unusual hour it continued, without recess or interruption, till noon, when dinner pleasantly invaded the scholastic ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... like o' that, laird?' said Saddletree to Dumbiedikes, when the counsel had ended his speech. 'There's a chiel can spin a muckle pirn out o' a wee tait o' tow!... And he's cleckit this great muckle bird out o' this wee egg! He could wile the very flounders out o' the Firth.'"—Heart ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... who heard the silence of my thought, Contriv'd a too successful wile, I ween: 20 And whisper'd to himself, with malice fraught— 'Too long our Slave the Damsel's smiles hath seen: To-morrow shall he ken her alter'd mien!' He spake, and ambush'd lay, till on my bed The morning shot her ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ole broken pot we used, ter tell 'bout de war. But warn't ole Miss hoppin' wen she foun' out you war goin' to de war! I thought she'd go almos' wile. Now, own up, Robby, didn't you feel kine ob mean to go off widout eben biddin' her good bye? An' I ralely think ole Miss war fon' ob yer. Now, own up, honey, didn't yer feel a little down in de mouf wen yer ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... to speak, and only replied, "Leulero! leulero!" and his wife "Picici! picici! picicio!" Then the soldier got mad in good earnest, seized the shoemaker's head, and was going to cut it off. When his wile saw that, she cried out, "Ah, don't, for mercy's sake!" "Good!" exclaimed her husband, "good! Now you go and carry the pan back to my godmother, and I will go ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... delayed by calms, and when we got in, I found to my great regret that the expedition had started, but that a small column was being formed which was to join it, starting on the following morning. At this news I rushed to my captain, and calling all the resources of persuasion and every wile of diplomacy to my aid, I strove to convince him that there would be time for me, during his revictualling, whereat I should be practically useless, to make a rush to the expeditionary force and get back again, and that if the King, my father, knew I had happened to be where ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... I tells her 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 ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... prickers, into the cover, in order to chive the game from his strength. This object being accomplished, afforded another severe chase of several miles, in a direction almost circular, during which the poor animal tried ever wile to get rid of his persecutors. He crossed and traversed all such dusty paths as were likely to retain the least scent of his footsteps; he laid himself close to the ground, drawing his feet under his belly, and clapping his nose close to the earth, lest he should be betrayed to the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in wild and bitter grief, but woman's pride, at times her guardian angel, at others her destroyer, took up its stronghold in her heart. The tempter Conrad awoke its tones—with specious wile he recalled De Clairville's lofty ideas of name and birth—how proudly he spoke of his lady mother and the castled state of his father's hall. Was it not likely that, at the last, this pride had rallied its strength around him, and bade him ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... a number of years, dislikes losing it when 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
... 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 descend ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... his wile's young, glowing face and even Miss Gascoigne, the hard, worldly woman, viewing all things in her narrow, worldly way, was silenced for the time. Then she began again, pouring out a torrent of explanations and self-exculpations, which soon resolved ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... childhood, well do I remember her as the angel of the sick-chamber, reading much to me from books useful and appropriate, and telling many a narrative not only fitted to wile away the pain of disease and the weariness of long confinement, but to elevate the mind and heart, and to direct them to all things noble and holy; over ready to watch while I slept, and to perform every gentle and kindly office. But her care of the sick—that she did not ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... husband, met the party at the lower gate, with a thousand welcomes. After the ceremony of introduction had been gone through, much abridged by the ease and excellent breeding of Lady Emily, she apologized for having used a little art to wile them back to a place which might awaken some painful reflections—'But as it was to change masters, we were very ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... always say to me, 'Jim, don' you ever have anything to do with dem Yankees. Dey're all pore miserable wile wretches. Dey lib in poverty an' nastiness and don' know nothin'.' I says to her, 'It's mighty quare, missus. I can't understan' it. Whar do all dem books come from? Master gits em from de Norf. Who makes all our boots an' clothes ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... 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 burning desire ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... 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, and pass guards and sentries apparently without their ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... conjunction of hostile planets, Ferdinand had recourse to his favourite policy of wile and stratagem. Turning against the Jews the very treaty Almamen had once sought to obtain in their favour, he caused it to be circulated, privately, that the Jews, anxious to purchase their peace with him, had promised ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... these men before him clever with their blue-prints and their puffling monsters) had come there searching profit from the land which he had never loved or lived on, and, seeing Madge, had, Joe thoroughly believed, exerted every wile of a superior experience to win her from him by fair means or foul. He thought of them and ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... here, he was there, he was everywhere, and yet, when the search was up, he was nowhere. Tales were told of his eloquence that increased the impression that he made a thousand-fold; it was said that he could wile birds off their branches and the beasts from their lairs; and this eloquence, it was known, could be heard only by initiates, in far-off country houses, or in quiet, unsuspected places in the cities. He preached in some shrouded and locked ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... His wile brought out and mixed the liquor, repeating to herself: 'And so for this fine castle in the air we are ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... upon the enthusiasm for Ristori by no means as an unmingled tribute to superior genius. We make no question of her actual womanly charms. Even if appearance of generosity, of simplicity, and sweetness were only deep Italian wile, and assumed, upon profound observation and consideration of human nature and the circumstances of Rachel's position in Paris, merely for the purpose of exciting applause, that applause would still be genuine, and would prove the ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... So it is not possible to deceive or go beyond the will of Zeus; for not even the son of Iapetus, kindly Prometheus, escaped his heavy anger, but of necessity strong bands confined him, although he knew many a wile. ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... Suns, that set, may rise again: But if once we loose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys. Cannot we delude the eyes Of a few poor household spies? Or his easier ears beguile, Thus remooved by our wile?— 'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal: But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... the same time the sonnes of king Alfwald were by force drawne out of the citie of Yorke, but first by a wile they were trained out of the head church where they had taken sanctuarie, and so at length miserablie slaine by king Ethelbert in Wonwaldremere, one of them was named Alfus, & the other Alfwin. In the yeere of ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (6 of 8) - The Sixt Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... and when she said she was, moved her chair at her request nearer to Lord Hardy, who scarcely looked at her, and did not manifest the slightest interest in her headache, or in her. Nothing which Daisy could do was of any avail to attract him to her, and she tried every wile and art upon him during the next few days, but to no purpose. At last, when she had been at the Ridge House a week, and she had an opportunity of seeing him alone, she said, in a ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... and left me! For a long time I sat perfectly still, waiting till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion, or even the flutter of my breath, might frighten it away. Thus have I often started from a pleasant dream, and then kept quiet, in hopes to wile it back. Deep were my musings, as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being. Had I created her? Was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes which peep under the lids of children's eyes? And did her beauty gladden me, for that one moment, and ...
— The Vision of the Fountain (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one grip and a shake, was dead; while the excited pack returned to watch and jump at the wire cages until another doomed prisoner was tossed forth to them. Gentlemen on their way for a walk were thus enabled to wile away a few minutes at the noble sport, and indulge themselves and their dogs with a little healthy excitement; while the boating costume of other gentlemen shewed that they had for a while left aquatic pursuits, and had strolled up from the river to indulge ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... on your children's head! For you (ah! did I think I e'er should live to see The fatal time when that could be!) Have even increased their pride and cruelty. Woman seems now above all vanity grown, Still boasting of her great unknown Platonic champions, gain'd without one female wile, Or the vast charges of a smile; Which 'tis a shame to see how much of late You've taught the covetous wretches to o'errate, And which they've now the consciences to weigh In the same balance with our tears, And with such scanty wages pay The bondage and the slavery ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... appointments at his private house, or invites him to dinner. Yet it behoves the poet to be on his guard. A publisher, like another personage, has many shapes of beguilement, and it is not unlikely that this flattering deference is but another wile to entrap the unwary. There is no way of circumventing the dreamer so subtle as to flatter his business qualities. We all like to be praised for the something we cannot do. It is for this reason that Mr. Stevenson interferes with Samoan politics, when he should ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... months 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... terrific energy which 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 ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... bells ring, or at night when we 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 ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is the head of the house; and for fair Miss Alice, she 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 ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... Duchess." And the Gipsy listened submissively. 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 an ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... other, round the loins So slender of his shape, was Michael Scot, Practised in every slight of magic wile." Inferno, XX. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... your 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 he—' ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... of moly, If thou touch at Circe's isle,— Hermes' moly, growing solely To undo enchanter's wile! When she proffers thee her chalice,— Wine and spices mixed with malice,— When she smites thee with her staff, To transform thee, do thou laugh! Safe thou art if thou but bear The least leaf of moly rare. Close it grows beside her portal, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... Ledger? Pot-bellied chair-warmers in clubs; hastening business men appreciative of the daily assurance that stability is the primal and final blessing, discontent the cardinal sin, the extant system perfect and holy, and any change a wile of the forces of destruction—as if the human race had evoluted by the power of standing still! For the man in the street they held no message. No; nor for the woman in the home. Banneker thought of young Smith of the yacht and the coming ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... world and her—acme of joys! Antony took her of the double choice. The ice-cold heart that passion seldom warms, Would find heat torrid in that queen's soft arms. She won without a single woman's wile, Illumining the earth with peerless smile. Come in!—but muffle closely up your face, No grateful scents have ta'en ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... child (like Canterbury Brawn his own dear father says, which so they are) his own I have been, ever since I found him, Mr Westlock, with his small red worsted shoe a-gurglin' in his throat, where he had put it in his play, a chick, wile they was leavin' of him on the floor a-lookin' for it through the ouse and him a-choakin' sweetly in the parlour! Oh, Betsey Prig, what wickedness you've showed this night, but never shall you darken Sairey's doors agen, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... hunting grounds of his fathers. Then a fierce determination took possession of his savage heart. For years he matured his plans, and watched the favorable moment to crush every living stranger at a blow. He took all his people into counsel, and such was their fidelity, and so deep the wile of the Indian chief, that, during four years of preparation, no warning reached the intended victims. To the last fatal moment, a studied semblance of cordial friendship was observed; some Englishmen, who had lost their way in the woods were kindly ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... face is often but a screen To hide a devil's heart of guile, Of thoughts and deeds of shameful mien, By winning looks of heartless wile. ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... lived, when, laved in blood, stood sword-gore-stained this stateliest house, — widespread woe for wise men all, who had no hope to hinder ever foes infernal and fiendish sprites from havoc in hall. This hero now, by the Wielder's might, a work has done that not all of us erst could ever do by wile and wisdom. Lo, well can she say whoso of women this warrior bore among sons of men, if still she liveth, that the God of the ages was good to her in the birth of her bairn. Now, Beowulf, thee, of heroes best, I shall heartily love as mine own, my son; preserve thou ever this kinship new: ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... nightingale, 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. She shall ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... I circulated a covert recommendation of this wile, which was acknowledged with sundry nods and inaudible assurances—the latter, so far as Jill was concerned, too readily given ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... robbers I have defended it, with faithful watching and hard fighting. Through storm and peril, through darkness and sorrow, through the temptation of pleasure and the bewilderment of riches, I have never parted from it. Gold could not buy it; passion could not force it; nor man nor woman could wile or win it away. Glad or sorry, well or wounded, at home or in exile, I have given my life to keep the jewel. This is the ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... 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 ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... 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 deth, and I wish I was ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... so said he,— Had known the Sirens' song, and Circe's wile; And in a cove of that Hesperian sea Had found a maiden on a lonely isle; A sacrifice, if so men might beguile The wrath of some beast-god they worshipp'd there, But Paris, 'twixt the sea and strait defile, Had slain the beast, ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... of drabness, Month of mud and month of wetness, Came the red-shirted Bedfordians, Came the lusty Midland schoolmen, Skilled in every wile of football, Swift to run, adept to collar, 'Gainst the Blue-and-Blacks to battle. Know ye that this famous contest Has from age to age endured: Thirty years and more it's lasted 'Twixt Bedfordians and Dulwich, 'Twixt ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... if I am banned from Paris and subject to the eye of the police? Where can I go, what can I do? You know my capabilities. You have seen Corentin, that storehouse of treachery and wile, turn ghastly pale before me, and doing justice to my powers.—That man has bereft me of everything; for it was he, and he alone, who overthrew the edifice of Lucien's fortunes, by what means and in whose interest I know not.—Corentin and Camusot ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... the lover's harmless wile; Some grace the maiden's artless smile; Some soothe the lab'rer's weary toil For humble gains, And make his cottage-scenes beguile His cares ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... thus, while submitting, conquering, and tyrannizing over him, content with present worldly pleasure, unmindful of the past, the future, or the above. This may react to intersexual antagonism until man comes to hate woman as a witch, or, as in the days of celibacy, consider sex a wile of the devil. Along these lines even the stage is beginning to represent the tragedies ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... has a pelican, and the last that I can enumerate on this occasion, is one State that has the rattlesnake run up as an emblem. On a former occasion I spoke of the origin of secession; and I traced its early history to the garden of Eden, when the serpent's wile and the serpent's wickedness beguiled and betrayed our first mother. After that occurred, and they knew light and knowledge, when their Lord and Master turned to them, they seceded, and hid themselves from his presence. The serpent's wile, and the serpent's wickedness, first started ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... belevethe not feithfully in God. And natheles he wil gladly here speke of God; and he suffrethe wel, that Cristene men duelle in his lordschipe, and that men of his feythe ben made Cristene men, zif thei wile, thorghe out alle his contree. For he defendethe no man to holde no ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... moved uneasily. A tragic look grew in his handsome face; his face that was a mirror of all passing emotions; his face that had been able to express love and romance, devotion and tenderness, to wile a bird from off a tree or love from the heart of any woman. And even though Zara Shulski knew of just how little value was anything he said or did yet his astonishing charm always softened her irritation toward his fecklessness. So she ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... 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 these was a grievous hurt to his egotism. The pride of the male was wounded sore. Where ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... scorn he answered—"Nay, Most Reverend! Far too well ye know, By guile and wile, the ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... told of their rapid approach. The 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 ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... be seen a prolonged succession of juvenile voluptuaries, females, many of them under fourteen years of age, offering themselves to indiscriminate prostitution, in a state verging on absolute nudity, alluring the passengers, by every seductive wile, to the haunts of depravity, from which retreat was seldom effected without pecuniary exaction, and frequently accompanied by personal violence. The nuisance has been partly abated, but entirely ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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 ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley |
