"Wistful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... swiftly, at that, sidled past her father with her eyes lifted, fascinated, and so out the door where she paused an instant to flash back a wistful appeal. Nothing but silence, and then her feet pattering ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... Mumtaz Mahal, I am sitting, Watching them wind their silent way Over your wistful Tomb; Watching the crescent prow Of the moon among them flitting, Fair as the shallop that bore your ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... the easy, affectionate, slightly wistful manner of fat men. Mr. Poppins's large round friendly childish eyes were never sarcastic. He was the man who makes of a crowd in the Pullman smoking-room old friends in half an hour. In turn, Mr. Wrenn did not shy off; he hinted at most of his lifelong ambitions and a fair number of his sorrows ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... already. If only the other side did not so insistently repel! Could it perhaps be overruled? Could she love him truly enough to hold his love for ever, and through it lead him to heights he might never even sight without her? Yet her eyes were wistful, gazing out there at the dreaming stars, and her ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... Clara one day, when she had watched in silence the girl's sweet face, and noticed its half-sad, half-wistful expression, 'what is the matter with you? You are fretting about something. Tell me what it is. Do you not wish to go to Troon with us, or would you rather go to Bourhill? Do tell us what you would like ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... of Mitha Baba; and it's true, Skag Sahib, there isn't anything in grey beyond her; but—" Horace stopped, suddenly gone wistful. ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... in a snowdrift," said one. "The irascible old white-haired gentleman in the Pullman smoker; the good-natured travelling salesman; the wistful young widow in the day coach, with her six-year-old blue-eyed little daughter. A coal-black Pullman porter who braves the shrieking gale to bring in a tree from the copse along the track. Red-headed brakeman ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... looking at him with a wistful, intent face, and wide-open, thoughtful eyes; so sober, and so eager, and so pitiful, that it made an unconscious plea to ...
— Opportunities • Susan Warner
... yield— With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, By rains incessant held; for now no call From early swain invites my hand to wield The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass fall; Or 'neath my window view the wistful train Of dripping poultry, whom the vine's broad leaves Shelter no more. Mute is the mournful plain. Silent the swallow sits beneath the thatch, And vacant hind hangs pensive o'er his hatch, Counting the frequent drip ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... you forgive me for losing Sancho?" asked Bab, with a wistful look which made Ben ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... shadows were falling thickly on the outer courtyard of the desolate house where Chin lived, a pitiful-looking beggar-woman stood timidly at the front door, gazing with wistful looks into the room which faced the street. Not a sound did she utter, not a single word escaped her lips to indicate that she had come ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... he was suffused with the light of a new revelation. For, stretching out his hard little claw to receive the gift, the little man had shot at him a glance so mild, so wistful, so brown-eyed, filled with such mixed admiration, trust, and appeal, that a queer softness had risen in the Maestro from somewhere down in the regions of his heel, up and up, quietly, like the mercury in the thermometer, till it had flowed through his whole body and stood still, its ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... condition of the latter being such as to give rise to the liveliest apprehension. He had eaten nothing since the previous day, pleading want of appetite, and as the sun went down he watched its gradual disappearance beneath the purple waves with wistful eagerness, murmuring, "The last time, the last time!" Then as the solemn darkness swept down over the sea, and the stars came out one by one in the great blue vault above, the little consciousness of ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... stool so as to get the last of the light for my embroidery. She pushed the hair back from my forehead—I wear it brushed up like Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt—and she looked and looked into my eyes. If possible there was something pained and wistful in her face. "My beautiful Ambrosine," she said, and that was all. I felt I was blushing all over my cheeks. "Beautiful Ambrosine." Then it must be true if grandmamma said it. I had often thought so—perhaps—myself, ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... here and there About my house: upon the empty stair Her robe brusht softly; o'er her chamber still There lay her fragrant presence to beguile Numb heart, dead heart. I knelt before her chair, And praying felt her hand laid on my hair, Felt her sweet breath, and guess'd her wistful smile. ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... eyes, tried to see some resemblance, in the little blue-red oval, to the sad, wistful face of his brother, which even then was haunting him from some mysterious distance. He kissed the child's forehead, but even then so vaguely and perfunctorily, that the mother sighed, and drew it closer to ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... that no one could enter the Professions who had no money. No need to write up 'None but the sons of gentlemen may apply.' Very many sons of gentlemen, in fact, had to turn away sorrowfully after gazing with wistful eyes upon that ladder which they knew that they, too, could climb, as well as a Denman or an Erskine. As for the sons of poor parents, they could not so much as think of the ladder: they hardly knew that it existed: they cared nothing about it. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... Winnow ventoli. Winter travintri. Winter vintro. Wintry vintra. Wipe visxi. Wire metalfadeno. Wisdom sagxo, sagxeco. Wise sagxa, sagxema. Wish, want deziri, voli. Wish volo, deziro. Wistful pensanta. Wit sprito. Wit spritulo. Witch sorcxistino. Witchcraft sorcxo—arto. With kun, per, je, de. With reference to rilate al. With regard to rilate al. With respect to rilate al. Withdraw eligxi. Withdrawal reenpasxo. Wither velki, sensukigxi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... others were busy gathering fuel, providing for the horses, and cooking the evening repast, this worthy Sancho of the wilderness would take his seat quietly and cosily by the fire, puffing away at his pipe, and eyeing in silence, but with wistful intensity of gaze, the savory morsels ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... come over now and try on your dress?" Ally asked, looking at her with wistful admiration. "I want to be sure the sleeves don't ruck up the same ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... was something about the frailty of her figure as she sat up in bed, turning to the table with the spirit-lamp and saucepan upon it, a quality of wistful charm in her little undressed head, which went towards softening him. She was quiet, too; she spoke no word, nor looked towards him. He watched her patiently waiting for the boiling of the milk; he watched the ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... these days, simply couldn't see that he was on the earth. She looked round him, above him, and through him, but never at him; which was rotten from Wilton's point of view, for he had developed a sort of wistful expression—I am convinced that he practised it before the mirror after his bath—which should have worked wonders, if only he could have got action with it. But she avoided his eye as if he had been a creditor whom she was trying to ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... looked no more than a speck on the rock. He lifted the telescope again, and her face jumped into close view. She was still looking up his way, the little mirror turning idly in her hand. Her face was thoughtful; almost wistful, he dared to think. Perhaps she was lonesome, too. She had told him that she had spells of being ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... up at the ancient sun-dial on one of the gables, we perceived that its shadow fell deeper and deeper with the declining day, telling us, as it had told many before, how time waited not, and reminding us that we, also were travellers. Passing again round the mansion, and casting a wistful look within, we saw a woman sitting at a low window, sorting fruit. We approached, and asked if strangers were permitted to see the Hall. She replied gently, that it was not "a show-house." We pleaded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... midst of it was a sacred and glorious eminence—the umbilicus orbis terrarum—"toward which the heathen in all parts of the world, and in all ages, turned a wistful gaze in every act of devotion, and to which they hoped to be admitted, or, rather, to be restored, at the close of this ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... extended hand with a close, clinging touch that some way seemed half familiar. For one instant the shapeless gloom appeared to take definite form—a tall human figure, a man in poor and ragged clothes; for one instant a pair of wistful, eager eyes looked into her own; the next, the cock without crowed loud and shrill. Her hand was released, and with the same long, weary sigh the ghostly Presence passed away. Miss Sophonisba sank back on her pillow nearly insensible. She did not know how long ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... sentiment. In no part of the world would an expatriated Englishman find himself more entirely in harmony with his environment, from a purely patriotic point of view. What wonder, then, that Upper Canada was regarded by place-hunting emigrants from England with wistful eyes? What wonder that an appointment to a public office in Upper Canada should have been regarded by such persons as a thing greatly to be coveted? Such aspirants were regarded with but little favour by Governor Simcoe. His great object was to ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... with her. He has a sort of wistful way with him as soon as she comes near. It makes me want to cry. Somehow he reminds me of a fine, affectionate dog watching a master who doesn't give ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... into her ancestral halls, and stood for a moment, silent, looking round her with a wistful, almost pathetic earnestness. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... the hour of recreation and dinner arrived, the boys were dismissed, each seized his basket, containing his provisions, or ran home to get his meal with his parents: I found myself sitting in the school-room tete-a-tete with Mr O'Gallagher, and feeling very well inclined for my dinner I cast a wistful eye at my basket, but I said nothing; Mr O'Gallagher, who appeared to have been in ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... Peter took the daffodils and began absently crumpling the waxed paper around them. His eyes, when he looked into the doctor's face, were very wistful and very, ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... or the praise of the song, or a cause too subtle to name, that changed her. She had already seemed an indifferent woman, a great artist, a careless Bohemienne in her speech; but for the next change he was unprepared: it was a pleading child with wistful eyes who seated herself beside him, not remotely through any self-consciousness, but near to him, where speech ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... of books to sell in the West Indies is like water in the desert, for books are not yet included in plantation stores for our islands. The cause is this. The French colonists, whether Creoles or Europeans, consider the West Indies as their country; they cast no wistful looks toward France; they have not even a packet of their own; they marry, educate, and build in and for the West Indies and the West Indies alone. In our colonies it is quite different; except a few regular Creoles to whom gratis rum and gratis ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... eyes, so long accustomed to the green lawns and trees of Berkeley, turned almost wistful as he gazed away across the rich fields, dotted with cocks of hay or resounding to the whirr of the mower; but for the sweating Latter Day Saints who labored in the fields, he had nothing but the pitying contempt of ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... wistful green. A dream Of Summer warmth the wine-sweet breezes hold, Fair wildings blow—bright buttercups agleam Like shining sequins scattered on the wold, And daffodills—a wealth of faery gold. The building birds their coming bliss presage ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... boys. Paddies from Paddy Lane. Ed got a black eye last year. We'll get back at them. It will be some evening." Judith did not look jealous or wistful yet. "The ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... watch. It wanted still ten minutes to twelve. For a moment then he suffered his thoughts to go back to the new thing which had crept into his life. He was suddenly back in the Milan, he saw the backward turn of her head, the almost wistful look in her eyes as she made her little pronouncement. She had broken her engagement. Why? It was a battle, indeed, he was fighting with that still, cold antagonist, whom he half despised and half feared, the man concerning whose actual personality ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the Coroner, he waited for his dismissal, and receiving it, walked back not to his lonely corner, but to his former place between his father and brother, who received him with a wistful air and strange looks of mingled ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... perfect and the holy and the pure, as I seemed unable to find them here on the earth. In the quiet solemnity of church, or under the blue skies, I could detach myself from my surroundings and reach up and out with wistful dimness towards the ineffable holiness and purity of God—God who, for me at least, ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley
... 'Not an inch—two or three dozen gentlemen waiting down-stairs on the chance of somebody's going out.' Pull out your purse—'Are you quite sure there's no room?'—'I'll go and look,' replies the door-keeper, with a wistful glance at your purse, 'but I'm afraid there's not.' He returns, and with real feeling assures you that it is morally impossible to get near the gallery. It is of no use waiting. When you are refused admission into the Strangers' ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Sheila showed in such things he very rapidly acquired. When he came to see the rows of stones a second time he was much impressed by their position on this bit of hill overlooking the sea. He sat down on his camp-stool with the determination that, although he could not satisfy Sheila's wistful questions, he would present her with some little sketch of these monuments and their surroundings which might catch up something of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... was shaking down a fortune from the green ivy-bushes that hung at the vintners' doors, the western continent, at which he had already cast wistful glances, remained the treasure-house of Spain. His unfortunate but indomitable half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, recalled it to his memory. The name of Gilbert deserves to be better remembered than it is; and ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... grew sad, while Thurston rebelled against an instinctive conviction that she knew a wistful expression was becoming to her and was calculated to ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... was prepared for an outburst. But no outburst came. The Marquis turned away from him, and paced slowly to the window, his head bowed, his hands behind his back. Halted there he spoke, without turning, his voice was at once scornful and wistful. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... to within a few steps of me. In the moonlight I saw her face quite plainly. It wore an expression I had never before seen on it—a humble, wistful, tender look. Often in life Hester had looked lovingly, even tenderly, upon me; but always, as it were, through a mask of pride and sternness. This was gone now, and I felt nearer to her than ever before. I knew suddenly that she understood me. And then the ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... look at the wistful eyes of the father, as Mr. Page stood by the head of the cot, resting one hand ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... settled herself in her long chair, she found herself disinclined for any further exertion, and just sat, reclining upon pale pink satin cushions, her slender hands folded upon her lap, her large, dark luminous eyes and delicate, refined features all set in a wistful sadness. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... were going to be angry, but she looked into the little poetess's kindly, wistful eyes, and ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... the patient, wistful watching, Educating thought and eye, Made the brakelet and the snakelet Types of ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... that any girl could care for a man until he had shown that he cared for her—it was the unmaidenly, impossible thing. And now—how beautiful he was, how dear! A wistful smile trembled around her lips. All that had gone before with other men suddenly became as nothing, forgotten and out of mind, and she herself made clean by this purifying fire. Even if she never had anything more in her whole life, she had this—even ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... Lee," Anette spoke in his place; "you will realize that at once. She's like a—a wistful April moon, or ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... A wistful look passed over their faces, such as you might expect to see on those who had repented too late and stood looking through St. Peter's gate at scenes in which they knew they ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... Iseult sat and watched him at his task, marvelling at his power. "Ah," she thought, "had I been a man I would have been just like to him." And, without fear of danger, so perfectly did she trust in him, she lay and gazed at him with admiring, wistful eyes. From time to time he came to her to encourage and reassure her, but although she felt no fear, she did not tell him so, so dearly did she love to hear his voice, and ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and going over to the bed bent and kissed the tired, wistful face. Patricia had a fashion of exciting sympathy at the wrong time, in a way that was perilous to discipline. "For this time, then, Patricia," she said. ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... support her to the rock, whence she beheld the exploit of Wampum-hair. She sank down, and removing, with her wasted hand, the long hair that had fallen over her eyes, gazed sadly on the foaming river. With a wistful look she followed the course of the cataract from top to bottom, probably recalling at the moment her lover's danger for her sake and her own repented scorn, then heavily sighed, and leaning her head on the bosom of one of her ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the girl's eyes. In its place there came an expression, more wistful perhaps than anything else. When she spoke again the irritation was ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... silence reigned in that examination hall, broken only by the scratching of pens and the secret sighs of one and another of the victims. The pictures on the walls, as they looked down, caught the eye of many a wistful upturned face, and marked the devouring of many a penholder, and the ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... children, with wide, wistful black eyes, who were sitting on the stone step, shyly crowded themselves together against the door-jamb to make passage-way for Richard and Mr. Taggett. Then the two pairs of eyes veered round inquiringly, and followed the strangers up the broken staircase and saw one of them knock ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... a little bachelor lawyer, whose face has "a pinched, wistful look" under the curls of his brown wig. He lives in a dreary house, with a testy housekeeper, and a timid little nephew-ward, and spends many of his lonely hours in trying to decide if he loves Miss Deborah Woodhouse the ...
— 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.
... silently for a moment or two, and then, with a sigh, lifting her eyes suddenly to mine, said quietly, "Yes, sometimes; sometimes—but very seldom," while for an instant across her face there flashed the summer lightning of a new hope, a single transient glance of wistful, timid entreaty; of wonder and delight that dared not even yet ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... up stairs and into her room alone; she threw open the small casements, and stood there looking out with a somewhat vague and distant look. There was no mischief now in those dark and tender eyes; there was rather an anxious and wistful questioning. And her heart seemed to go out from her to implore these gentle winds, and the soft colors of the sea, and the dreamy stillness of the woods, that now they should, if ever that was possible to them, bring all their sweet and curative influences to bear on him who had come ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... the alarm; the portage was conducted in peace; the vagabond warriors of the vicinity hovered about them while at work, but were kept at a wary distance. They regarded the loads of merchandise with wistful eyes, but seeing the "long-beards" so formidable in number, and so well prepared for action, they made no attempt either by open force or sly pilfering to collect their usual toll, but maintained a peaceful demeanor, and were afterwards rewarded for ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... there times, as we look at the squat, bronze bodies of the frogs—green-bronze, dark brown spotted, and all flecked with gold, the turned-down corners of their wistful mouths, their very exquisite black velvety eyes with golden rims—when the piteous croaks that come forth from their throats of pale daffodil colour do indeed awake a sympathy with their appeal against ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... a brushing among the bushes behind, and turning his head he saw Elfride following him. The fair girl looked in his face with a wistful smile of hope, too forcedly hopeful to displace the firmly established dread beneath it. His severe words of the previous night still sat heavy ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... happen to read the account till just now; and then I thought I'd run out and see what father said to you about where he was going. He told us he was going to the Mills, too, and—" Her voice growing more and more wistful, died away in the fascination of watching the fascination of Elbridge as he first took in the half-column of scare-heads, and then followed down to the meagre details of the dispatch eked out with ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... beautiful central figure is a girl child standing without self-consciousness by blooming primroses. Modeled faintly on the pedestal are the parents, from whose upturned faces and uplifted hands the primroses seem to spring. In the friezes, wistful old people are borne onward to Destiny in boats manned by joyous chubby children, unconscious of their priceless gift of youth to which their elders look back ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... and Peri in company with one of their second cousins (George—a freckled-face red-headed youngster) hurried to a pond that glistened in the field back of Robert Grey's home. The three had been there but a few minutes when a wistful little face peered at them from Mr. Grey's back fence. It was Kitty Farwell's second son, timid little Bobby, one of the primary pupils at the village school. Pearl called ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... you done to my boy," said Lady Mary, half laughing and half indignant, "that your lightest word is to be his law? And oh, Sarah"—her tone grew wistful—"it is strange—even though he loves you, that you should understand him better than I, who would lay ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... "'Tis written that to spurn A suppliant equals in offence to slay A twice-born; wherefore, not for Swarga's bliss Quit I, Mahendra, this poor clinging dog,— So without any hope or friend save me. So wistful, fawning for my faithfulness; So agonized to die, unless I help Who among men was ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... and the well-known house came into view, but he saw only the splendid, wistful man at the gate, waiting calmly, as a gentleman should, for life or ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... unpredictable expression. It was eloquent beyond denial, yet its reticence, its economy of gesture, were extreme—were, indeed, the very negation of emphasis. Is it strange that such music—hesitant, evasive, dream-filled, strangely ecstatic, with its wistful and twilight loveliness, its blended subtlety and simplicity—should have been as difficult to trace to any definite source as it was, for the general, immensely astonishing and unexpected? There was nothing like it to be found in Wagner, or in his more conspicuous and triumphant successors—in, ...
— Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande - A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score • Lawrence Gilman
... adorned with wreathed and clustered leaves and flowers, While little founts, like frosted spires, tossed up and down their mimic showers. He stood and gazed with wistful face, all a child's longing in his eyes; Then started as I touched his arm, and turned ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... stood silent, for the most part, and let them go without the usual facetious advice to "Be good to yourselves," and the hackneyed admonition to Chip to keep out of jail if he could. There must have been something very wistful in their faces, for the Little Doctor smiled bravely down upon then from the buggy seat, and lifted up the Kid for a four-toothed smile and an ecstatic "Bye!" accompanied by a vigorous flopping of hands, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... off likewise, escorting May and her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still saying in his wistful contemplation of her, 'Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... all that I could see of him. There he was, the old Commodore; his grizzled hair coming out from under a red woolen nightcap, and his shoulders wrapped in an old thread-bare blue dressing-gown which I had often seen him in. His face looked pale and drawn, and there was a wistful disappointed look about the eyes. I was so taken aback I could not speak, but lay watching him. He looked full at my face once or twice, but didn't seem to recognise me; and, just as I was getting ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... what it was, in the conditions, that renewed the whole solemnity, but by the end of twenty minutes a kind of wistful hush had fallen upon them, as before something poignant in which her visitor also participated. That was nothing verily but the perfection of the charm—or nothing rather but their excluded disinherited state in the presence of it. The charm turned on them a face that was cold in its beauty, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... glad now that I persuaded her not to go?" the waiter could not resist, and Annesley replied that she was glad. As the man turned away, "Mr. Smith" raised his eyebrows with rather a wistful smile. ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... and went to inform her sister. Emma was not long in appearing; the hue of her face was troubled, for she had deceived herself with the belief that it was Richard who knocked at the door. What more natural than for him to have come on Christmas Eve? She approached Alice with a wistful look, not venturing to utter any question, only hoping that some good news might have been brought her. Long watching in the sick room had given her own complexion the tint of ill-health; her eyelids were swollen and heavy; the brown hair upon ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... felt that he was going to say some such thing and for a moment it amused her. It was so ridiculous to find this rather wan and wistful indiscretion assuming damaging proportions. But a nasty fear succeeded her faint amusement. Could it be possible that ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... The hopeless wistful look in those eyes gave me a singular shock. I had never seen human eyes with the same expression; they seemed as though they were appealing against some awful destiny. Once when Charlie and I were staying ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a cursed scrape have I got myself!" thought the major, as he walked by the side of his companion, ever and anon casting wistful glances over his shoulder. "I am fairly caught on the horns of a dilemma. I instinctively feel that Disbrowe is dogging us. What will become of me? The moment this harebrained coxcomb enters the house, I will see ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... passing through the kitchen, with my poor morsel of bread in my hand, I saw the meat turning on the spit; my father and the rest were round the fire; I must bow to every one as I passed. When I had gone through this ceremony, leering with a wistful eye at the roast meat, which looked so inviting, and smelt so savory, I could not abstain from making that a bow likewise, adding in a pitiful tone, good bye, roast meal! This unpremeditated pleasantry put them in such good humor, that I was permitted ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the only thing it cannot cross. But I must go!" She held out her hand with half-shy friendliness. "Thank you for your niceness to me." Her eyes grew suddenly wistful. "Really, though, I don't think I should stay there if I ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... image in the rose Sheltered in garden on its native stock, Which there in solitude and safe repose, Blooms unapproached by sheperd or by flock. For this earth teems, and freshening water flows, And breeze and dewy dawn their sweets unlock: With such the wistful youth his bosom dresses. With such the ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... "How exquisite those delphiniums are!" he added after introductions were complete; "such a delicate blue! I should not have intruded had I known you had a party"—he waved his hand towards the single tennis-court, around which the wistful racquet-bearers were now (as it seemed) some thousands strong, "but it is always a pleasure"—he turned to me—"to be able to walk in this paradise on a fine day and appreciate its colour and its fragrance. I find Mrs. Brock so valuable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... began to feel sleepy, Obed said he would go out and make sure his traps were set right. Max offered to keep him company, and together they sauntered forth, to be followed with a wistful look from the envious Steve, who ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a day or two—soon's it's safe. It'd do anybody good." His face grew wistful. "If you jest see it once, the way it is, you'd know what I mean: kind o' big sweeps,"—he waved his arm over acres of moor,—"an' a good deal o' sky—room enough for clouds, sizable ones, and wind. You'd o't to hear our wind." He paused, helpless, before ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... hearing, for she was in much awe of him, blushed more than she spoke, and seemed taken up by the fear of doing something inappropriate, constantly turning wistful inquiring looks towards her husband, to seek encouragement or direction, but it was a becoming confusion, and by no means lessened the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were listened to with calmness. I suspected and pitied the man, but I did not fear him. His words and his looks were indicative less of cruelty than madness. I looked at him with an air compassionate and wistful. I spoke with mildness ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... in his eyes," said Mrs. Staunton in a wistful voice. "I am old-fashioned like himself, and this dress is old-fashioned too. It was a pretty dress when it was made up. Let me see, that was twelve years ago—we went to Margate for a week, and he bought me the dress. He took great pains in choosing ...
— A Girl in Ten Thousand • L. T. Meade
... ill and died; so we took the two children. My wife was willing; she was a wonderfully good woman, member of the Methodist church till she died. I—I am not a church member myself, ma'am; I passed through that stage of spiritual development a long while ago." He gave a wistful glance at his companion's dimly outlined profile. "But I never tried to disturb her faith; ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... at the conjurer as if he thought he was mad, but he followed him down to the stage in silence. When he was there the conjurer leaned forward suddenly, and his face was filled with a wistful eagerness. ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... itself felt, and still later this desire to foreswear his past and reform became ever stronger, especially when one day by a singular chance he happened during recess to pass a school house, and stepping behind a tree from where with a wistful look in his eyes he watched the rosy-cheeked, romping children, while at the same time revolting pictures of his own misspent life and thoughts of the far worse to-be-spent future, and the fact that he had been heretofore his own ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... down town on weekday mornings, loitering into the post-office, idling an hour away in the Library, drifting home to mutton stew or Hamburg steak when the clock in the town hall struck twelve. Sometimes Martie watched the big eastern trains thunder by, looking with her wistful young blue eyes at the card-playing men and the flushed, bored young women with their heads resting on the backs of their upholstered seats. Sometimes she stopped at the little magazine stand outside of Carlson's cigar store; her eye ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... tasted of the delightful cup of youthful friendship, and pressed with all the glow of early and sincere attachment the venerable hand of a kind instructor, or met the wistful eye and hearty grasp of parting schoolfellows, and ancient dames, and obliging servants, you will easily discover how embarrassing a task it must be to depict in words the agitating sensations which at such a moment spread their varied influence over the mind. I had taken care ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... too much for Dallas, before whose eyes was rising, not the gold, for he seemed to be looking right through that, but the wistful, deeply-lined face of a grey-haired woman at a window, watching ever for the lost ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... she had bidden him good night, she changed her mind and came back into his room. There had been something wistful about his kiss that, ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Cove little June felt it more keenly than ever in her life before. She did not want to go to bed that night, and when the others were asleep she slipped out to the porch and sat on the steps, her eyes luminous and her face wistful—looking towards the big Pine which pointed the way towards the far silence into which ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... consider how Albert Sidney Burleson has missed his chance, when we consider what he could have got out of fifty-three thousand wistful silenced Post Offices in the way of pointers in not being fooled about himself, we cannot but take Mr. Burleson very gravely and a little personally. We cannot but be grateful to Mr. Burleson in our better business moments as America's best, most satisfactory, most complete ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... an interesting scene from the wild and wonderful in Nature. Its romantic luxuriance must win the attention of the artist, and the admiration of the less wistful beholder; while the philosophic mind, unaccustomed to vulgar wonder, may seek in its formation the cause of some of the most important changes of the earth's surface. Our esteemed friend and correspondent Vyvyan, is probably familiar with the locality ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... sadly back to my own purpose, which is, despite many wistful longings of a more ambitious nature, to write a plain tale of the adventures of two members—prospective up to this point—of the Escadrille Lafayette. To go back to some of those earlier ones, when we were making our first cross-country flights, I remember ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... from me and pressed his nose to her face; Berry dragged him from her protesting arms and set him upon his knee; Daphne tore him away and hugged him close. Such of us as were temporarily disseized, stroked and fondled his limbs and cried endearing epithets. Only our fair American looked on with a wistful smile. ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... it goes with some people," said Lance, the first time he spoke of it; and Roy fancied he detected a wistful note ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Kansan with a little daughter, about 17. They struck a claim, and Burthen's on the way to San Francisco for supplies. I'll tell you more when I have seen the lad and had a talk with him. The girl, I understand, was keeping house for them. A pretty, wistful little thing, they tell me, so I'd better keep ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... mingling of chords she began with a little ripple of melody, MacDowell's lovely, hurrying, buoyant "Improvisation," with its aeolian vibrancies, its light, bright surges of sound, sinking at the last into cradled restfulness. Without pause or transition she passed on to Grieg; the wistful, remote appeal of the strangely misnamed "Erotique," plaintive, solemn, and in the fulfillment almost hymnal: the brusque pursuing minors of the wedding music, and the diamond-shower of notes of the sun-path song, bleak, piercing, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Charles-Norton hid on the fringe of the forest while Dolly shopped sagely in the general store, to the general approval of the somnolent inhabitants who, by this time, had diminished to five; and then they returned in the twilight, Nicodemus a bit wistful with the weight of the many useful and good things within his bags. They worked about the cabin the next day, and Dolly performed wonders with burlap and chintz. Curtains draped the three small windows, a carpet spread upon the floor, ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper |
