"Wisp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... escapes by only a few feet or inches rows of cooked ducks and pigs that seem to have been finally varnished to make them appeal to the native epicure. Here and there you observe strange hunks of meat held together by a wisp of straw that your guide tells you with immobile countenance are rat hams, and in sundry shops your ready eye thereafter detects tiny dried carcasses that can only be rats. Let it be said in fairness to the sights of Canton that the display of vegetables is attractive enough to ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... "Hunting Will-o'-the-wisp. Throwing it away in speculations that are colored bright for him by a man that wants to ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... and shortly heard something flapping its wings far away, and then it began to blow so hard that he was carried away between the houses like a wisp of hay across the courtyard, and if he had not caught hold of the fence he would no doubt have been blown ...
— East of the Sun and West of the Moon - Old Tales from the North • Peter Christen Asbjornsen
... shadows upon her path, lighting up, every here and there, a bunch of fern or flowers, and brightening the trunks of the interlacing trees. As she saw the lights and shadows dancing before her she became serious for a moment, and fancied they were like the will-o'-the-wisp, and portended no good; but she soon quickened her pace, and at the first opening went out again into the road, where the sun was uninterrupted in his gaze, and her few ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... Maida led Molly by one hand and Tim by the other. Rosie led Betsy and Delia. Dorothy Clark held Fluff and Mabel held Tag. Promptly at one o'clock, Mrs. Lathrop appeared at the window, carrying a little, thin, white wisp of a girl, all muffled up in a ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... girl, with a flat dirty face, that would have been pale, if it had not been burnt to a yellowish brown with the sun, till it was only a shade lighter than the old battered straw hat that had let a wisp or two of yellow hair through a great slit in the back just above the brim. She wore a tattered cotton frock that had nearly all the pattern washed out, which must have been a long time before, because it was so stained and ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... and dry them in the sunshine!" Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind Rose, but made no angry answer; From the lodge went forth in silence, Took the nets, that hung together, Dripping, freezing at the doorway; Like a wisp of straw he wrung them, Like a wisp of straw he broke them, Could not wring them without breaking, Such the strength was in his fingers. "Lazy Kwasind!" said his father, "In the hunt you never help me; Every bow you touch is broken, Snapped asunder ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... is good, we say, because the universe is good; and this goodness we expect to grasp in its entirety, not to-day, perhaps, nor to-morrow, but at least the day after. And so, like the proverbial ass, we are lured on by a wisp of hay. But being, at bottom, intelligent brutes, we begin, in time, to reflect; we put back our ears, and plant our feet stiff and rigid where we stand, and refuse to budge an inch till we have some further information as to ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... She reached up and, with her dainty wisp of handkerchief, wiped his wet cheeks exactly as if ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... temper in no uncertain manner. Exposed to the full rake of the strong westerly wind, the waves were running high, and breaking into white-caps, threatened to engulf the reeling canoe. But the Indian was master of the situation, and steered so skilfully that only an occasional wisp of spray was ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... best places were quickly taken, the hollows in the trees, the holes in the walls, the forks of the apple-trees and the elms, and you could see a brown beak, like the point of a sword, sticking out of a wisp of straw between all the rafters of the roof. One year, when all the places were taken, I suppose, a tomtit, in her embarrassment, spied the slit of the letter-box protected by its little roof, at the right of the parsonage gate. She slipped in, was satisfied with ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... that great mountain that enclosed us to the north: whether it stood, robed in sunshine, quaking to its topmost pinnacle with the heat and brightness of the day; or whether it set itself to weaving vapours, wisp after wisp growing, trembling, fleeting, and ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... park came repeated notes from the horn, the baying of hounds, and the screams that celebrate with orthodox excitement the death of a fox. The rat-hunt was over. Joker lifted his spare, aristocratic head from the grass, and listened, with a wisp of dewy green stuff in his mouth. Christian looked at her watch. It was early still, not eight o'clock. A grey horse and its rider came forth from the dark grove of laurels. Larry was looking for ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... to the last wisp and flung it all into the chasm that yawned for hundreds of feet ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... us closer and closer to the man who stood on the war engine. We saw him to be old, with white hair that tumbled on his shoulders, and a long white beard, untrimmed and uncurled. Save for a wisp of rag about the loins, his body was unclothed, ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... beginnings Who shall tell what did befall Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail? Why fear to die Why lingerest thou, pale violet, to see the dying year Why should I keep holiday Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Winters know Wise and polite,—and if I drew Wisp and meteor nightly falling With beams December planets dart With the key of the secret he marches faster Would you know ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... This is effected by holding the horse's head over a bucketful of boiling water, so that the animal will be compelled to inhale steam with every inhalation of air. Stirring the hot water with a wisp of hay causes the steam to arise in greater abundance. One may cause the horse to put his nose in a bag containing cut hay upon which hot water has been poured, the bottom of the bag being stood in a bucket, but the bag must be of loose texture, as gunny sack, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... buildings, and rushed again to the door to find it locked. In sheer despair she made for the window, threw open the casement, and ere Sir Hugh could seize or stop her flung herself headlong into the court below. When the horrified husband looked down into the darkness, a wisp of white garments, a bruised and lifeless body, was all that ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... would not destroy without a cause for hatred. Heaven guard the threatened one, whoe'er he be! Well, Prudence at least admonishes me to avoid the left-hand path; faith any turn but that must prove the right for me. Ha! unless my eyes are cheated by a Will-o'-th'-Wisp, a friendly light now peeps out through yonder coppice. (looking out) Perhaps some woodman's hut, with a fresh faggot just crackling on the hearth. Oh, for a seat in such a chimney corner. (Whistle again at a distance) I hear you, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... trudged along so deep in thought that when the donkey without rhyme or reason came to a halt, half-way down the hill, he too halted, and stood pulling a wisp of grey side-whiskers. ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the night, the Moors kept regular watch, and frequently looked into the hut, to see if I was asleep, and if it was quite dark, they would light a wisp of grass. About two o'clock in the morning, a Moor entered the hut, probably with a view to steal something, or perhaps to murder me: and groping about, he laid his hand upon my shoulder. As night visitors were at best but suspicious characters, I sprang up the moment he laid his hand upon me; ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... Guida wasn't a wisp of quality to shiver with terror at the mere mention of war with France; but ba su, thought Jean, there was now in her face a sharp, fixed look of pain, in her eyes a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... solitude, she had forgotten this; she had only asked whether any life was worth living for a woman who had neither husband nor children. Was the family all that life had to offer? could she find no interest outside the household? And so, led by this will-of-the-wisp, she had, with her eyes open, walked into the quagmire of politics, in spite of remonstrance, in ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... flashing be built in, shaped so as to throw off on each side, clear of the frames and main wall, the water which may penetrate the outer shell. While building the wall it is very essential to ensure that the cavity and ties be kept clean and free from rubbish or mortar, and for this purpose a wisp of straw or a narrow board, is laid on the ties where the bricklayer is working, to catch any material that may be inadvertently dropped, this protection being raised as the work proceeds. A hollow wall tends to keep the building dry internally and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... will-o'-the-wisp, a glitter in the cunning lights, she led him to a far end of the room where many cushions were, There she turned on him with a snake-like suddenness that was one ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... would feed, and pictured it cluttered with gold-hunters, greedy, undesirable interlopers doomed to disappointment in the long run. Ward had seen the gold fever sweep through a community and spoil life for the weak ones who took to chasing the will-o'-the-wisp of sudden wealth. Tramps of the pick-and-pan brigade—they should not come swarming into these hills on any wild-goose chase, if he could help it. And he could and should. This was not, properly speaking, a gold country. He knew it. The rock formations did not ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... not the least sign anywhere. This appeared the very home of death and intolerable cold. Yet at one spot, between two little, almost indistinguishable ridges of snow, might have been noticed a tiny wisp of vapor. If one had put his face down close to the snow, so that the vapor came between his eyes and the light, he would have made it out quite distinctly. And it would have certainly seemed very puzzling that anything like steam should be coming up ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... season, going into that untracked region of romance and dreams where the call of his still sturdy manhood had beckoned him,—how long none might know. And at last he had heeded, laid down the staid, the sane, and followed the will-o'-the-wisp of conquest and adventure that took ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... L200—a sum which is insufficient to pay the Dutch teacher employed to bring the children up to the required standard in that language. It is small wonder, then, that most teachers prefer to dispense with this Will-o'-the-wisp grant altogether, seeing that the efforts of some to earn it have resulted in pecuniary loss. The actual sum expended on Uitlander schools last year amounted to L650, or 1s. 10d. a head out of a total expenditure ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... The last wisp of smoke drifted away among the trees, and the sunlight, although it was mid-afternoon, was fading. Presently the skies were a vast dome of dull, lowering gray, and the breeze had a chill edge. Then the wind died and not a leaf or blade of grass in the forest stirred. ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... who is more inclined to a reasonable plumpness than her English sister. 'The skirt to England,' says he, 'the bloomer to France.' The whole question is one of physique and latitude. The Esquimaux lady would look ungainly and feel uncomfortable if she exchanged her moose furs for the wisp of calico which is patronised by the lady of Senegal; and in the like way the Englishwoman is manifestly ungainly and uncomfortable when she borrows ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... lover too early, and by her tenderness respond to him too readily, and by her devotedness follow him too blindly, before she had time to know herself or men. And he also knew, or believed, that first love is as often a will-o'-the-wisp as the star for which all young things take it. Five days in the week he tended the gardens of Alfriston, the sixth he gave to the Lord of the Burgh that lay among the hills, and the seventh he kept for his daughter on the hill a few miles distant, which ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... quiet byroad near headquarters town, where all the staff business of General Headquarters was conducted, a wisp of a flag hung at the entrance to the grounds of a small modern chateau. There seemed no place in all France more isolated and tranquil, its size forbidding many guests. It was such a house as some quiet, ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... are goin' to have some breakfas'." She paused, in a shade of doubt, then smiled a faint apology: "It isn't very much of a breakfas', darlin', but we'll make believe it's waffles an' chicken an'—an' hot rolls an' batter-bread an'—an' everything." She rose to her little bare feet, holding her wisp of a skirt aside, and made a sweeping bow. "Allow me, Miss Jemima, to make you a mos' ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... respect yourself and them you come of mair than to show yourself to a blind beetle in an unbecoming way. 'Tis well that there's one in the house that knows what is befitting. Miss Dollars, you stand still; I must sort your necktie before you go. 'Tis all of a wisp. Miss Mysie, you tell your mamma that I should be fain to know her pleasure about Miss Dollars' frocks. She've scarce got one—coloured or ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and rocky cliff and desolate open field. Now and then we came to a house, but so dead and forbidding was its aspect that we did not dare even to ask our way. Never a soul appeared in the door-yard, and if smoke came from the chimney it was a thin, blue wisp as from dying embers. The land was asleep, under the spell of the white touch. To knock at one of those houses would have been, as it seemed, to call its occupants from their ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... peering at him from the dim hallway. In fact, it was no one he had ever seen before. A little old man stood there, a man with ruddy cheeks, a stern mouth, and blue eyes whose sharpness was softened by a moist, far-away expression. From beneath a nautical blue cap strayed a wisp or two of white hair. Otherwise, he was buttoned to his chin in a great coat, fastened with imposing brass buttons, dulled by ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... water, five miles apart. She could see the white ribbon of foaming cascades in each. Between lifted a great mountain, and on the lakeward slope of this stood a terrible scar of a slide, yellow and brown, rising two thousand feet from the shore. A vaporous wisp of cloud hung along the top of the slide, and above this aerial banner a snow-capped pinnacle thrust itself high ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... moon is high o'er the ruined tower, When the night-bird sings in her lonely bower, When beetle and cricket and bat are awake, And the will-o'-the-wisp is at play in the brake, Oh then do we gather, all frolic and glee, We gay little elfins, beneath the old tree! And brightly we hover on silvery wing, And dip our small cups in the whispering spring, While the night-wind ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... Dennis saw many things: the slanting rain on our helmets, the wisp of fog that rolled lazily between him and that Homeric combat. He recognised his brother, half a head taller than anybody else, thrusting and hewing like a hero of old, and Littlewood working a Lewis gun on the top of the sandbags, ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... out for love of her who called by the sacred name of father the murdered man who lay here, to whom we owed all our troubles. Was the day never to dawn? Was there never to be peace between Tim and me? And was Kit, like some will-o'-the-wisp, always to be snatched from my reach whenever I seemed to have ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... again that last look of her face: its beauty, its strength, its sweet sympathy. He seemed to see the stray wisp of hair that had found its way down upon her cheek. Her perfect lips—how well he remembered!—were the unopened ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... slowly from his chair, still keeping his eyes steadily fixed upon it, and moved toward it, with his hands outstretched. He did not get any nearer to it; it was retreating before him, like a will-o'-the-wisp. He kept on, crossing the length of the room; it seemed to pass through the substance of the door, and yet he saw it beyond. He opened the door softly; yes, there it was in the hall. A pistol was lying on the little table beside the door, which Richard knew to be loaded. Mechanically, ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... "something else!" Why do we not stop and gather it by the roadside we are passing now? We will not find it farther on. That which is enticing us onward is only the illusionary flicker of a will o'-the-wisp! We will stretch out our hands too late—when we have been caught in its fatal snares, and then in the darkness and misery that will surround us, we will feel how foolish we have been, and our cries of despair and distress will be echoed back to our own ears in sounds of mockery ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... to myself, the monster had pulled himself together, his crutch under his arm, his hat upon his head. Just before him Tom lay motionless upon the sward; but the murderer minded him not a whit, cleansing his blood-stained knife the while upon a wisp of grass. Everything else was unchanged, the sun still shining mercilessly on the steaming marsh and the tall pinnacle of the mountain, and I could scarce persuade myself that murder had been actually done, and a human life cruelly cut short, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hope once that Mr Fawkes should bring grist to our mill," said Gatesby, thoughtfully: "but I see that is but a Will-o'-the-Wisp." ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... man," I said to myself. I felt humble compared with him, an insignificant wisp of a thing, who could never do anything brave or great in life; and so I was proud to be called his "pal." When he asked if I, too, didn't need some cordial, I only laughed, and said I had just had ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... same time it occupies so large an apparent portion of the heavens, how stupendous must be the extent of the nebula. It would seem almost as if all the other clusters hitherto gauged were collected and compressed into one, they would not surpass this mighty group, in which every wisp—every wrinkle—is a sand-heap of stars. There are cases in which, though imagination has quailed, reason may still adventure inquiry, and prolong its speculations; but at times we are brought to a limit across which no human faculty has the strength to penetrate, and where, as now, at ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... great implacable abyss in which are swallowed up all those phantoms which call themselves living beings. I saw that the living are but apparitions hovering for a moment over the earth, made out of the ashes of the dead, and swiftly re-absorbed by eternal night, as the will-o'-the-wisp sinks into the marsh. The nothingness of our joys, the emptiness of our existence, and the futility of our ambitions, filled me with a quiet disgust. From regret to disenchantment I floated on to Buddhism, to universal weariness. Ah, the hope of a blessed ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is tucked in all round, instead of being directly on the skin, as farther south. In further proof of the local civilization, the women wear false hair. One matron was obliging enough to undo her coiffure for our benefit, and held out by its end, for our admiring inspection, a mighty wisp nearly three feet long. She put it back on for us after the manner, as I have since been informed, of a coronet braid. The men gave fewer evidences of civilization, unless smoking cigars in holders will serve. However, one man ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... anything about me I could sell to get him bread!" thought Nello, but he had nothing except the wisp of linen and serge that covered him, and his pair of ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... probably the commonest of all. He is a true Indian divinity, shining like the lightning and striking only when there is a storm, but appearing like the Aurora Borealis, or even the Robin Goodfellow-Will-o'-the-Wisp at others.] ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... wear the look of a nightmare, a harassing, feverish dream. We seemed to be fascinated hither and thither by an ignis fatuus, enticed into quagmires and quicksands by an altogether illusive, mocking, malicious Will-o'-the- wisp. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... spot. There in the seat where I was wont to pursue my even tenor as an orchid slumbered Martin Dyke, amateur desecrator of other men's houses, challenger of the wayward fates, fanatic of a will-o'-the-wisp pursuit, desperate adventurer in the uncharted realms of love; and in his face, turned toward the polychromatic abominations of the house, so soon to be deserted, was all the pathos and all the beauty of ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... natives—young, active men—made their appearance. They all had at their backs large baskets bound by withes passing across the forehead and chest. They were but lightly clothed. A small poncho covered their shoulders, and the usual cloth and kilt was worn round the loins, a wisp of leaves preventing their backs being chafed by their burdens. Each man also carried a long staff in his hand, and a bag of roasted corn as provision for the journey. The burdens were soon adjusted. One of ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... ship, to have been gulled into attacking her, and—and—oh! he could scarcely bear to think of it! There was but one consolation. Although too late to save the others, even through the mist he had seen that wisp of smoke rising from the hold; yes, he, the experienced, had smelt a rat, and, warned by some half-divine intuition, had kept his distance with the result ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... cleared up in the simplest fashion. Roger felt a rush of slightly ashamed gratitude towards his step-mother, feeling a little reluctantly, as he had done once before, that he had misjudged her. Confused by her kindly impulses he stooped to pick up the wisp of a handkerchief she had let fall to the floor. As he laid it in her lap she uttered a ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... hain't forgotten you, you'll find,' said the man, wiping his scythe blade with a wisp of grass; needlessly, for he had just whetted it; but it gave him an opportunity to look at the ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... Bess," cried Gertie, indignantly, twisting the telegram she held in her hand into a wisp, "it's from Uncle ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... came and mingled with those of the leafless eglantines in the waters of the cloister fountain. Suddenly the lights and the perfumes and the stillness of the sky were overwhelmed, a fierce Northwind charged with storm and darkness burst roaring upon me. It lifted me up and carried me like a wisp of straw over fields, cities, rivers, and mountains, and through the midst of thunder-clouds, during a long night composed of a whole series of nights and days. And when, after this prolonged and cruel rage, ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... the best results are to be looked for. Just as truly, without some knowledge of past and existing conditions of practise, none may hope to escape the danger of becoming, on the one hand, dull imitators of the superficial qualities of old work; or on the other, followers of the first will-o'-the-wisp novelty which presents ...
— Wood-Carving - Design and Workmanship • George Jack
... A smirking man, wrapped in a bath towel, with a wisp of wet hair over one eye, is a ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... shoulders of Charles-Norton. He was sitting beneath the glow of the evening lamp, his coat off, his shirt pulled down to his elbows; and she, standing behind the chair, was leaning solicitously over him. A wisp of her hair caressed his right ear, but somehow did not relax his temper. "Well, let them alone, Dolly," he growled; "let them alone. ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... in him, he sang and whistled, as he bustled about. The big porch was cleared, and a tree-stump put in as a block; he lit a wisp of hay to see if there was a draught underneath the boiler. The children stood open-mouthed gazing at him, and Lars Peter shook his ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... gently, as she drew the girl to the end of the porch where the wistaria vine, a whispering maple and the crimson rambler shut them in from the eyes of all the world save the spirit of Providence Nob, which brooded down over them in a wisp of cloud across its sun-reddened top, "here's the place and time and heart strength to tell you that your Lord have laid the hand of affliction on you heavy and have tooken back from you the beautiful voice He gave you to use for a time. I'm a-praying for you to ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... to the tale:—great joy unto the camp! To Russian, Tartar, English, French, Cossacque, O'er whom Suwarrow shone like a gas lamp, Presaging a most luminous attack; Or like a wisp along the marsh so damp, Which leads beholders on a boggy walk, He flitted to and fro a dancing light, Which all who saw it ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... would be apt to make people cough, and, besides, phosphorus is a dangerous thing to handle incautiously, and I do not want to suggest anything which might be productive of disaster if the experiment was repeated at home. A little wisp of hay, slightly damped and lighted, will safely yield a sufficient supply, and you need not have an elaborate box like this; any kind of old packing-case, or even a bandbox with a duster stretched across its open top and a round hole cut in the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... No Will-o'-the-Wisp mislight thee; Nor snake or glow-worm bite thee; But on, on thy way, Not making a stay, Since ghost there is none to ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... on the coast of County Antrim, the 'wisp' is not used; but on this day the boys go about from house to house, and are regaled with 'bannocks' of oaten bread, buttered; these bannocks are baked specially for the occasion, and are commonly small, thick, and round, and with a hole through the centre. Any person who enters a house at ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... nightmare, or, as we call it, Maren. There is also the tradition of gigantic dragons or serpents, called by us Lindorm, in which your story of St. George and the dragon prominently figures. There are also minor superstitions of the will-o'-the-wisp, the bird called in English the goatsucker, ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... raised, and, if the fire is permanently kindled, the pinch of smoldering dust is inserted in a wisp of dry grass or other easily inflammable material; in a minute or two flames burst forth, and the fire may ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... on the ridge now! and the rest is easy. Tell you what, though, boys, now we're all right, I don't mind saying that I didn't take no stock in that blamed corpse light down there. If there ever was a will-o'-the-wisp on a square up mountain, that was one. It wasn't no window! Some of ye thought ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... never be infringed; but as a countryman will sometimes run after a jack-a-lantern, till running after it he finds himself in a burying-ground, so Bracciolini suffered himself to be misled by his literary will-o'-the wisp,—alliteration: therefore he preferred writing "nec nunc," instead of "nec tunc;" he therefore did that which was fatal to the work that he wanted to palm off upon the world as the composition of a Roman, because a Roman would not have done this, because he ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... it told Nan how he wished the door would open and let him in to persuade her to her own well-being. She looked at him a moment, as he stood staring down at his feet where a ragged wisp of yellowed brake came through the snow, looked as if he hurt her beyond endurance, and yet she had to probe ill circumstance to its depths. Then she spoke, but in her old voice ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Just a little wisp of song played softly in the twilight, Such a happy little song—and oh, the dusk is gray! Such a joyous little song, and oh, the night is coming— Coming with the bitter chill that ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... a mere wisp of gauze, that will only be fit to burn after being worn two or three times. And I should have to work for six months to earn enough to pay for it! How shocking! What a terrible difference there is between the lives of the rich and ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Golden Age, but our bodily life moves on slow feet, and needs the lantern on the path and the staff struck carefully into the darkness before us to see that the path beyond is not a morass, and the light not a will o' the wisp. ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... homestead, an old enclosure, low hill; udal, a particular tenure of land; ug, to loathe; wadmel, a species of coarse cloth; wake, a portion of open water in a frozen lake or stream; wale, to choose; wase, a wisp or small bundle of hay or straw; whauve, to cover over, especially with a dish turned upside down; wick, a creek, ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... "horoscope." We are aware that many commentators have discussed the star of Christ's birth from various points of view. Some have thought it a real star; others have had enough astronomy to see that this was impossible, and have argued that it was a big will-o'-the-wisp, created and directed by supernatural power, like the pillar of day-cloud and night-fire that led the Jews in the wilderness; while still others have favored the idea of a supernatural illusion, which was confined to the wise men—and thus it was that the "star" was not seen or mentioned ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... as Barclay enjoyed considerable popularity in his own age. Erasmus calls him 'Britannicarum literarum lumen et decus!' How dark must have been the night in which such a Will-o'-wisp was mistaken for a star! He has wit, indeed, and satirical observation; but his wit is wilder than it is strong, and his satire is dashed with personality and obscenity. His style, Campbell observes, is 'almost a texture of slang phrases, patched with shreds of ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... The community which seemed so stable to me thirty years ago, has vanished like a wisp of sunrise fog. The McClintocks, the Dudleys, the Baileys, pioneers of my father's generation, have entered upon their final migration to another darkly mysterious frontier. My sunset World—all of it—is in process of change, of disintegration, of dissolution. ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... and called Harry, who came out from the rough shed which served as a stable, in his shirt, with a wisp of hay in his hand. He had stripped off coat, and waistcoat, and braces, and had been warming himself by giving the horses ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... his advice, within the hour. He found Joyce at home in the kitchen. She was making pies energetically. The sleeves of her dress were rolled up to the elbows and there was a dab of flour on her temple where she had brushed back a rebellious wisp of hair. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... 'un, Soup," growled the sailor. "Who'd have thought it of a savage? Why, it was reg'lar polite and genteel. I couldn't ha' done that. Who'd ha' expected it of a chap who dresses in an orstridge feather and a wisp o' ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... not young. The tall, spare form stiffly erect, the little wisp of hair behind ceremoniously braided and adorned with a high comb, the long, thin hands and the fine network of wrinkles over her pellucid, colorless cheeks, tell this." But she is a gentlewoman, with generations ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... was—will-o'-the-wisp as he seemed—I desired above all else to see and speak with this man whom Tom Anderly called "Carver" and Captain Tugg knew as "Professor Vose." If my father, Dr. Webb, was alive he would be a man with a mysterious past! I wanted to come face to face with ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... time is too fully occupied to enable us to give the requisite amount of care to the competitors' efforts. Nevertheless, we hope for an interesting competition in the near future. We need original work, however, more than translations. Meanwhile we offer a Prize (the Will o' the Wisp English-Esperanto Dictionary, which really ought to be ready by Christmas) to all friends who can send us the annual subscriptions of ten new subscribers. Of course secretaries and officials of groups are not included ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various
... then tiny flames, that crackled and sputtered. And then arose a wisp of smoke. Carefully Bessie piled on stick after stick, carefully chosen and well dried by sun and wind, so that they would ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... slash of his knife Escombe severed the filthy wisp of silk that had once been a smart necktie, as it had somehow become tightly knotted round the unconscious man's throat, and then impatiently awaited the coming of Arima, who was leading the horse on the saddle of which were strapped the small ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... microscope, his big hands adjusting the focus screw. Presently he would break off his work of observation and jot down a few notes in crabbed German characters. His big head, his squat body, his long ungainly arms, his pale face with its little wisp of beard, would have been recognized by Oliva Cresswell, for this was Professor Heyler—"the Herr Professor," as ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... quitted Bagshot; and it was midnight as they entered the home park, and proceeded towards the fatal oak. It was pitchy dark, and they could only distinguish the tree by its white, scathed trunk. All at once, a blue flame, like a will-o'-the-wisp, appeared, flitted thrice round the tree, and then remained stationary, its light falling upon a figure in a wild garb, with a rusty chain hanging from its left arm, and an antlered helm upon its head. They knew it to be Herne, and instantly fell down before him, ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... jury had. He was a dried-out wisp of a man wrinkled like a winter pippin. "Was your uncle engaged to be married at the time ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... development. They had seen it in the eyes of creatures young enough to be called boys and girls, they had heard it in musical laughter and in silly giggles, they had seen it express itself in tragedy and comedy and watched it end in union or in a nothingness which melted away like a wisp of fog. But they knew it was a thing omnipresent and that no one passed through life untouched by it in ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... from his face. And he knew by its soft thin feeling and its delicate scent of violets, Bee's favorite perfume, that it was her handkerchief, and she had spread it as a veil over his exposed and feverish, face. That little wisp of cambric was redolent of Bee! of her presence, her purity, ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... chapel long before this. Well, I'll have a wash at the spring, and away to church.' Saying which, he carefully picked the straw from his coat, cleaned his dusty shoes with a wisp of dry grass, and after a thorough washing of face and hands, he took up the worn felt hat of the stranger, and set off ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... and wimpled lip, The gold-wisp, the airy-grey Eye, all in fellowship— This, all this beauty blooming, This, all this freshness fuming, Give God ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... School, when Frank Shabata arrived from the old country and set all the Bohemian girls in a flutter. He was easily the buck of the beer-gardens, and on Sunday he was a sight to see, with his silk hat and tucked shirt and blue frock-coat, wearing gloves and carrying a little wisp of a yellow cane. He was tall and fair, with splendid teeth and close-cropped yellow curls, and he wore a slightly disdainful expression, proper for a young man with high connections, whose mother had a big farm in the Elbe valley. There ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... of progress. Altiora peto is its motto. The spirit of progress is in the air, and lures its votaries on to higher flights. Sometimes they discover that they have been following a mere will-o'-the-wisp, that leads them into bog and quagmire whence no escape is possible. The England of a century, or even of half a century ago, has vanished, and we find ourselves in the midst of a busy, bustling world that knows ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... figure: he prefers to maintain dignity and distance by choosing comparisons from ancient history and mythology, or from those great and strange things in Nature which repel intimacy—the sun, the moon, the sea, planets in opposition, a shooting star, an evening mist, a will-o'-the-wisp, a vulture descending from the Himalayas, the ice-floes on the North-East passage, the sea-beast leviathan, Xerxes' Hellespontic bridge, the gryphon pursuing the Arimaspian, the madness of Alcides in Oeta, the rape of Proserpine, and a hundred more reminiscences ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... foolish I was to be tempted by such a 'will o' the wisp' as that!" he exclaimed. "We must keep away, my dear sir, to the left, and I hope ere long that we shall escape from this treacherous neighbourhood." He had been through a good many trying scenes, but he had never felt more perplexed than ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... could be drawn by the enthusiasm of the artist than that there is some kind of preordained harmony between words and things, whereby expression and thought tally exactly, like the halves of a puzzle? This illusion, called in France the doctrine of the mot propre, is a will o' the wisp which has kept many an artist dancing on its trail. That there is one, and only one way of expressing one thing has been the belief of other writers besides Gustave Flaubert, inspiriting them to a desperate and fruitful industry. ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... relax them, take away one grain of their holiness, and you blast the blossom from which wholesome fruit can spring. When love and truth dies out of marriage, its vitality is gone. God forgive the men and the women who dare to hold the most beautiful tie that links soul to soul, as a wisp of flax, to be rent or burned at the will of our ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... thought she saw long creatures come heaving out of the black pools. A toad jumped upon her, and she shrieked, and sprang to her feet, and would have run away headlong, when she spied in the distance a faint glimmer. She thought it was a Will-o'- the-wisp. What could he be after? Was he looking for her? She dared not run, lest he should see and pounce upon her. The light came nearer, and grew brighter and larger. Plainly, the little fiend was looking ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... down, here and there, like following some will-o'-the-wisp went the boys. At times they thought they had lost the object of their pursuit, but again they would hear him hurrying on ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... you workers— Clinging to your stable And your wisp of warm straw— Let the fires grow cold, Let the iron spill out of the troughs, Let the iron run wild Like a red ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... judges, and pity the child who obeyed at all hazards. Poor though I was, I bought a small bouquet for my sick mother the day that I left her, and the last thing she did was to arrange the flowers, tie them with a wisp of faded blue ribbon, and putting them in my hand, she desired me to be sure to stop at the cemetery, find her mother's grave in the Darrington lot, and lay the bunch of blossoms for her upon her mother's monument. Mother's last words were: 'Don't forget to kneel down and pray ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... (an English nun, who came to Germany in the eighth century) became associated with this Witches' Sabbath, as the 1st of May was sacred to her. To this midnight orgy of the Walpurgisnacht Mephistopheles takes Faust.... They are lighted on their toilsome ascent of the Blocksberg by a will-o'-the-wisp. A vast multitude of witches and goblins are flocking to the summit; the midnight air resounds with their shrieks and jabberings; weird lights flash from every quarter, revealing thronging swarms of ghoulish shapes and dancing Hexen. The trees themselves are dancing. ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... Suddenly will-o'-the-wisp opportunity flickered before him, and in his high mood he paused not at all to consider it, but insanely chased it. He had just reached a crossing, and down the cross street, walking away from Noble, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... once confronted by the startling assertion of the explorer James Chapman, that there is "love in all their marriages." If this is true—if there is love in all the marriages of what is one of the lowest human races—then I have been pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp in the preceding pages of this book, and it will be a waste of ink and paper to write another line. But is it true? Let us first see what manner of mortals these Bushmen are, before subjecting Mr. Chapman's special testimony to a cross-examination. The following facts are compiled ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... "it doesn't need much conjuration to tell that. Food and lodging for ourselves, to be sure; and a wisp of hay and tether for our horses. —Hospitality in short; and that's what no true Tennessee man, bred and born, ever refused yet. No, not even to an enemy, such ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... complete wreck. I can't think what's the matter with me, and I've lost all my hair. You've no idea, Mrs. White, of the beautiful hair I used to have; it used to fall in armfuls over my shoulders; now, it's no more than a wisp.' ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... a sort of dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which marked my succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life; for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for several years afterward within the line of innocence. The great misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... hands found the seals quickly. He slipped his few possessions into a bag at his belt, slid the knife into a spring holster above his wrist, and picked up the bowl-shaped helmet. It seated on a plastic seal, and the little air compressor at his back began to hum, ready to turn the thin wisp of Mars' atmosphere into a barely breathable pressure. He tested the Marspeaker—an amplifier and speaker in another pouch, designed to raise the volume of his voice to a level where it would carry through ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... M. de Foissac, M. Dupotet, M. Chapelain, and M. de Geslin. It would be but an unprofitable, and by no means a pleasant task to follow the commissioners in their erratic career, as they were led hither and thither by the four lights of magnetism above mentioned; the four "Wills-o'-the-Wisp" which dazzled the benighted and bewildered doctors on that wide and shadowy region of metaphysical inquiry — the influence of mind over matter. It will be better to state at once the conclusion they came to after so long and laborious an investigation, and then examine whether they were ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... its thorns from bales, loose pressed, on their way to market in buffalo carts; "Babul the thief," the natives called this acacia. Higher up a torch-wood tree gleamed as if sprayed with gold, its limbs, lean and bare of foliage, holding at their extremities in wisp-like fingers bright, yellow, solitary blooms. From a tendu tree a pair of droll little brown monkeys chattered and ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... threshold—the Oldest Trustee in advance, her figure commanding and unbent, for all her seventy years, and her lorgnette raised. As she was speaking a little gray wisp of a woman detached herself from the group and moved slowly down ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... Anna. I've been through too much. Why, you mayn't think it, but I'm grown up, Francis! I'm about twenty years older than that foolish little girl you married. I—I wonder I haven't wrinkles and a little wisp of fuzzy gray hair!" ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... quixotic strain in this wrestling with an overwhelming foe, when we see the childlike faith with which the people have grasped at every unplausible hope of rescue from its anguish of death and still grasps at it, as a drowning man grasps at a wisp of straw. Don Quixote still remains the "noble knight" for whom—if he appears in the age of firearms—we still fire three salvos of honor over ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... whirled and dropped, his weapon falling to the dust. Clanton fired once more to make sure that his work was done, then moved slowly forward, his eyes focused on the body. A thin wisp of smoke rose from the revolver lying close to the ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... cloud. group, cluster, Pleiades, clump, pencil; set, batch, lot, pack; budget, assortment, bunch; parcel; packet, package; bundle, fascine[obs3], fasces[obs3], bale; seron[obs3], seroon[obs3]; fagot, wisp, truss, tuft; shock, rick, fardel[obs3], stack, sheaf, haycock[obs3]; fascicle, fascicule[obs3], fasciculus[Lat], gavel, hattock[obs3], stook[obs3]. accumulation &c. (store) 636; congeries, heap, lump, pile, rouleau[obs3], tissue, mass, pyramid; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... a faintness, and with it an almost uncontrollable desire to run madly from this place, this thing, swept over her. But she drew closer, kneeling quickly, and put her warm hand upon the hand that clutched the wisp of grass so rigidly. It was cold, so cold that ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... the builder of the house, hating excess, had thought fit not to carry gas-pipes higher than the first floor. A large but old bedstead filled half the floor space. On the shabby dressing-table a pile of bills and various papers lay near the lamp. Clothes were hung behind the door, and a vague wisp of muslin moved slightly in the warm draught from the tiny open window. There were two small cane-chairs, enamelled, on which the women sat, close to each other, both incommoded by the unwholesome sultriness of the only chamber that ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... I wouldn't do that if I were you," quietly said one of the tame elephants, coming up behind Keedah just then, and the half-wild elephant was so surprised that he nearly dropped a wisp of hay he ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... of his stride and the spring of his step, it was clear that he had not yet lost the fire and activity of his youth. His fierce hawk-like face was clean shaven like that of a priest, save for a long thin wisp of white moustache which drooped down half way to his shoulder. That he had been handsome might be easily judged from his high aquiline nose and clear-cut chin; but his features had been so distorted by the seams and scars of old ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... concentration of thought and feminine tenderness. He feels like a big intellectual boy who unless mother looks after him will get indigestion or neurasthenia. Sometimes men pity their leaders. Meighen, with his intensity and his thought before action looks such a frail wisp of a man. The last time I saw him in public he was bare-headed on an open-air stage, a dusky, lean silhouette against a vast flare of water and sky. On the same spot less than two hundred years ago, that singular, overbuilt top head and sharply tapering, ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... and Adah's cold fingers worked nervously at the wisp of hay she was twisting in her hand. "I had seen him before—he was in the cars when Willie and I were on our way to Terrace Hill. Willie had the earache, and he was so kind ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... over the moors. The solitary lights of a cab crawling almost at a foot pace along the lonely road shone like a will-o'-the-wisp through the snow. It had been snowing for hours, steadily, thickly, and the cold was intense. The dead heather by the roadside had long been completely hidden under that ever-increasing load. It lay in great billows ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... silence of the rugged, lonely way. The active guide strode on from stone to stone, returning short answers to his companion, whose doubts began to take the form of questions as to 'the man's' knowledge of the road, and the certainty of finding the Laurel House at the end of this will-o'-the-wisp journey. Weariness from a long day's walk and work, and the dawning perception of the stranger's suspicions, were not calculated to induce a very bland frame of mind or tone of manner, and the replies received confirmed the professor's determination ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... grain, many eyes of the Sammies turned in the direction of the red mill. It was a French one, of picturesque construction. And as Jimmy and his chums looked they saw a little wisp of smoke come from one of the windows. Then came another staccato discharge, but this time with less ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... nothing more than he could see from the door of his cabin. He wished he could see something. A fight—anything that had action in it. But the revolution, boiling intermittently over there, did not so much as float a wisp ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... to appear upon the scene is Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, whose brilliant mercurial figure flashes for a moment across the wild and troubled stage of Ireland, only the next to vanish like some Will-o'-the-wisp into an ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... curious figure were an old blouse, formerly blue, and trousers of the coarse burlap used in Paris to wrap bales. All city people would have shuddered at the sight of his broken sabots, without even a wisp of straw to stop the cracks; and it is very certain that the blouse and the trousers had no money value at ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... about the soft, yielding body beneath its wisp of garment, and he swung her behind him as he set himself to meet the attack. And he flashed her a look that must have carried a message, for the trembling lips were framing a ghost of a smile as her eyes ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... his father. James' breathing was as if strangled; his eyes were closed. And in Soames, looking on his father so worn and white and wasted, listening to his strangled breathing, there rose a passionate vehemence of anger against Nature, cruel, inexorable Nature, kneeling on the chest of that wisp of a body, slowly pressing out the breath, pressing out the life of the being who was dearest to him in the world. His father, of all men, had lived a careful life, moderate, abstemious, and this was his reward—to have life slowly, painfully ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Paul coldly, but the reproach cut deep. He was a failure. No nervous or intellectual effort could save him now, though he spent himself to the last heartbeat. He was the sport of a mocking Will o' the Wisp which he ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... a cent's worth of evidence against the man yet? Have you ever heard where he runs his cattle? Has anybody? Has any one ever seen under that mask? Has any one been found who could identify even his figure? No. Red Mask is a will-o'-the-wisp. He's a ghost; and it's our business to find the body o' that ghost. I'm not the fool to go around to Anton and say, 'You are Red Mask.' He'd laugh in my face. An' later on I guess I'd be targettin' a shot for him. What if I rounded ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... of them is put to death with a knife by a woman in hideous attire. Afterwards, with gross gestures, she dances with the victim.{54} According to another account, from Gothland, the victim sits clad in a skin, holding in his mouth a wisp of straw cut sharp at the ends and standing out. It has been conjectured that this is meant to resemble a swine's bristles, and that the man represents ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... usual, doomed to disappointment, for the pressure on our front became greater and greater. But our eyes were always turned towards the East, and, as I have explained in a former chapter, the Russian "Will-o'-the Wisp" continued to uphold us and keep our eyes ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... ear holes, its shape inaugurating the suspicion that it had been ravaged from a former equine possessor. In his hand was a valise—description of it is an impossible task; a Boston man would not have carried his lunch and law books to his office in it. And above one ear, in his hair, was a wisp of hay—the rustic's letter of credit, his badge of innocence, the last clinging touch of the Garden of Eden lingering ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... receive your sentence, if you will not show us mercy. Pity those who condemn themselves and come to ask forgiveness. It is you who have given strength to the nation by dwelling with it; and if you leave us, we shall be like a wisp of straw torn from the ground to be the sport of the wind. This country is an island drifting on the waves, for the first storm to overwhelm and sink. Make it fast again to its foundation, and posterity will never forget to ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... McGee, there's no end of good luck in you, Will-o'-the-wisp, with a flicker of Puck in you, Wild as a bull-pup, and all of his pluck in you— Let a man tread on your coat and he'll see! Eyes like the lakes of Killarney for clarity, Nose that turns up without any vulgarity, Smile like a cherub, and hair that is carroty— Whoop, you're a rarity, Barney McGee! ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... little doorstep; his shoulders were pressed to my breast; I hugged him from behind desperately. Oh! he was heavy, heavy; heavier than any man on earth, I should imagine. Then without more ado I tipped him overboard. The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it for ever. All the pilgrims and the manager were then congregated on the awning-deck about the pilot-house, chattering at each other like a flock of excited magpies, and there was a scandalized murmur at my heartless ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... stared at him, her face curiously blank, as though to say, 'Why are you so cruel?' He offered her the wisp of paper. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... was full of them. Fires were built on the ground, and soon Pasha could scent coffee boiling and bacon frying. Black boys began moving about among the horses with hay and oats and water. One of them rubbed Pasha hurriedly with a wisp of straw. It was little like the currying and rubbing with brush and comb and flannel to which he was accustomed and which he needed just then, oh, how sadly. His strained muscles had stiffened so much that every movement gave him pain. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... rapid exchange between Kells and his lieutenant, Jim Cleve sat on the edge of the table, one dusty boot swinging so that his spur jangled, a wisp of a cigarette in his lips. His face was white except where there seemed to be bruises under his eyes. Joan had never seen him look like this. She guessed that he had been drunk—perhaps was still ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... sentences were broken and finally ended abruptly. Roger was fast asleep. Charley, with a soft kiss on his hair, rose from the cramped position on her knees and went into the house. In a short time the adobe was in darkness and Peter, with a wisp of alfalfa on which he chewed meditatively, hanging from his mouth, leaned his gray head on the corral bars and eyed the ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... a very bewildering thing—and thoughts do sometimes play the very will-o'-the-wisp with one. And when somebody you know is at a party, there is a funny inclination to go through the motions at least, and be up as late as anybody else. So it was with a somewhat sudden recollection that Mr. Rollo bethought him of what his watch might say. Just then he was in a ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... From mere and holt and hollow rose amain The haunters of the silence; from the streams And wells of water, from the country demes, From plough and pasture, bottom, ridge and crest The rustic Gods rose up and joined the rest. Like a long wisp of cloud from out his banks Streamed Xanthos, that swift river, to the ranks Of flying shapes; and driven by that same mind That urged him to it came Simoeis behind, And other Gods and other, of stream and tree And hill and vale—for nothing there can be On earth or under Heaven, but hath ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... said I, most earnestly, "but a poor little wisp of a child that makes me love him so I dare not think of his dying soon, as he surely must! There; listen!" And the plaintive gaiety of the homely ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... word she led me through a short passage, and then, striking a match, lit a big old-fashioned lantern. As the light fell upon her features I saw they were thin and hard, with deep-set eyes and a stray wisp of silver across her wrinkled brow. Around her head was a kind of hood of the same stuff as her dress, a black, coarse woolen, while around her neck was a broad linen collar. In an instant I recognized that she was a member ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... the gradual metamorphoses of the investigations of the old searchers after the "philosopher's stone" and "elixir of life." The long hours of study and experiment in the chase for this will-o'-the-wisp were of vast benefit to the coming generations; and to these deluded philosophers of the Middle Ages, and even of ancient times, we are doubtless indebted for much ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... though at the moment of death there is a real being—the soul, in fact, as distinct from the body, in which all but materialists believe—that this has no permanent existence, but melts away by degrees till it becomes an irresponsible, purposeless nothing—a will-o'-the-wisp in fact? I think I heard of some theory of the kind lately in a French book, but it shocked and repelled me so that I tried to forget it. Just as well, better, believe that we are nothing but our bodies, ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... entitled England and Schottland. The authoress, when in London, visited the theatre in order to see a play founded on Cooper's novel The Wept of Wish-ton Wish; and being unable to understand the title, she calls it the "Will of the Whiston Wisp,'' which she tells us means an ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... beneath the flounces, and wondered if it could really be that they held the same little feet which used to patter about, buttonless, and down at heel; she looked at the jaunty, outstanding bow which tied back the hair, and contrasted it with the wisp of ribbon twisted to the proportions of a tape, and knotted like a cat-o'-nine-tails, which used to bind together the straggly locks, and as she looked, she felt—shall it be confessed?—a pang of longing and regret for the days that were no more. It passed in a moment, for whatever ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... which I fancied would lead me to the love for which my soul is starving—to the sympathy which is sweeter even than love to the broken heart of a man. I followed it. I was deceived. It was no real light, but a mere will o' the wisp bred in the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... little den, where the lamp was still burning on the wall, and groaned. The young fellow who was generally to be found there was a great friend of his, and they attended the same chapel together. A little farther an open cupboard was noticed with a wisp of spun yarn hanging out from it—inflammable stuff, quite untouched. But about thirty yards farther they came upon the first signs of mischief. A heavy fall of roof had to be scrambled over, and beyond it afterdamp ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mysterious region never seemed to come nearer; rather it receded as the adventurers advanced, a yellow will-o'-the-wisp that had led them through tangled forest and pestilential swamp only to mock them in the end. The natives grew fiercer and more threatening; the guides began to murmur at the length of the way—their river homes seemed so far behind them. Savage faces peered ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... of those snaky-looking, black-haired peons, with a wisp of jetty mustache, who serve as the type of Mexican villains in lurid melodrama—and he had ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... then," said Wag; and I expected him to run up and pull Wisp down by the legs, but he didn't do that. He took something out of the breast of his tunic, put it in his mouth, lay down on his stomach, and, with his eyes on Wisp, puffed out his cheeks. Two or three seconds passed, during which I felt ...
— The Five Jars • Montague Rhodes James
... article on the Records of Ireland, will, it is to be hoped, give the full details of this exciting record hunt, and thus exemplify the great utility, not to speak of the manliness, of real names and addresses, versus false names and equally Will-o'-the-Wisp initials. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various
... of God think how largely and thoroughly God will at that day own and recompense all the good and holy acts of his people. Every bit, every drop, every rag, and every night's harbor though but in a wisp of straw, shall be rewarded in that day before men and angels: "Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones, a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you," saith Christ, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... usher,—who could have put him into his pocket. His passions at times were almost ungovernable; his brother George, being considerably the taller and stronger, used frequently to hold him down by main force, when he was in "one of his moods" and was endeavoring to beat him. It was all, however, a wisp-of-straw conflagration; for he had an intensely tender affection for his brothers, and proved it upon the most trying occasions. He was not merely the "favorite of all," like a pet prize-fighter, for his ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... back no wisp at all For eager folk to clutch, what time I glide So near, and turn, and ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... I saw one such jet of steam, shooting into space from a spot not far from the equator of the strange world. In the television disk, it looked like a tiny wisp of white, barely visible against the gray water, but in reality it must have been a mighty roaring column of smoke and ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... road to look at him. The young fellow was lying on his back on the stretcher, looking very pale. His eyes were closed, and a stiff wisp of his fair hair was clotted with blood. The bystanders, however, declared that there was no serious harm done, and, besides, the scamp had only himself to blame, for he was always playing all sorts of wild ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola |
