"Would-be" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attached by rivets, while the intervening vertical cylinders are soldered. The designs in repousse work are evidently pendants to one another. The first represents a hunt of wild bulls. One bull, whose appearance indicates the highest pitch of fury, has dashed a would-be captor to earth and is now tossing another on his horns. A second bull, entangled in a stout net, writhes and bellows in the vain effort to escape. A third gallops at full speed from the scene of his comrade's captivity. The other ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... every moment to take leave of me, and I would not have them meet. In my confusion my eyes rested on a 'trophy of arms' with which my father had decorated one side of the room. Scarcely knowing what I was about, I seized a foil, handed it to my would-be lover, and taking another myself, I took up ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... them very kind for a time, and later found out the real reason for their specious amiability. It was not long before he detected a patronizing tone that stirred his gall and confirmed him in his bitter Republicanism, a phase of opinion through which many a would-be patrician passes by way of prelude to his introduction to ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... length one of my fellows came up, but it was too late. The fallen elephant in the herd had risen from the ground, and they had all hustled off at a great pace, and were gone. I had only bagged one elephant. Where was the valiant Bacheet—the would-be Nimrod, who for the last three months had been fretting in inactivity, and longing for the moment of action, when he had promised to be my trusty gun-bearer? He was the last man to appear, and he only ventured from his hiding-place in the ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... would-be thief's chance. With a dexterity worthy of a better cause the urchin transferred the slip, money and letters to his own pocket. It was done in less than three seconds, and then he darted back into the crowd ...
— Richard Dare's Venture • Edward Stratemeyer
... If a would-be eloquent lawyer mispronounced a foreign word, saying, for instance, "factitious" instead of "fictitious," Pyotr Dmitritch brightened up at once and asked, "What? How? Factitious? What does that mean?" and then ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Indians, if the woman is not a consenting party she elopes with her lover and thus escapes the would-be-husband. In this way elopement has gradually become a recognized institution among certain races. I was told by a Bulgarian that the peasants in his country buy their wives from the father, generally for two or three hundred francs, but if the father demands too much, the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... really looked at what went on about you, how funny and silly lots of traditional ideas did seem. That notion, solemnly accepted by the would-be sophisticated moderns, for instance, that a woman of beauty and intelligence was being wasted unless she was engaged in being the "emotional inspiration" of some man's life: which meant in plain English, stimulating his sexual desire to that fever-heat ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... and in no complimentary manner. His soul had been stripped bare, sensitive to a breath. It would writhe under the mild compassion of a former admirer as much as it would under the open jibes of his enemies. He had plenty of enemies. Every "is," "has-been," "would-be," "will-be" has enemies. It is well they have. Nothing is lost in nature. Enemies make you; ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... plots altogether. And even as he fell, a great cry rose from the foot of the stair, and looking out through the portion of the doorway that was yet unclosed, we saw armed men rushing up to the rescue, and called an answer to their shouts. Then the would-be murderers who yet remained on the stairway, and amongst whom I saw several priests, turned to fly, but, having nowhere to go, were butchered as they fled. Only one man stayed, and he was the great ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... which the reader will find below (Chap. V). Here we confine the narrative to a plain statement of the successive stages in the crisis, neither discussing the motives of the several Powers involved, nor distinguishing the fine shades of difference in the various proposals which were made by would-be mediators. ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... leading Powers of Europe, other than Russia and Austria, had been negatived by Germany on the frivolous pretext that such a conference was "too formal a method," quite ignoring the fact that its very formality would have necessarily given a "cooling time" to the would-be belligerents. Thereupon Sir ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... the negotiations between buyer and seller are carried on by means of finger taps under a handkerchief. The would-be purchaser reaches out his hand to the seller under cover of the cloth and makes his bid in the palm of the seller's hand by tapping his fingers. The code is well understood by both. Its advantage lies in the fact that a possible purchaser is enabled to make his bid in the presence of other ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... cries burst from the throats of numbers standing round, and were echoed by the would-be executioners. Before I knew what was about to happen, a number of them, rushing forward, lifted me on their shoulders, and carried me along in triumph, shouting and singing, while Monsieur Planterre's friends, ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... rather vague, estimate of you was the correct one. You are a good bit of a scoundrel, and, if I guess rightly, a would-be blackmailer." ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Article written by a would-be Willie Winter of the wild and wooly West, she couldn't find any one in the neighborhood of 42nd Street who had even heard of the Tank Town in which ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... people. He has sworn war to the knife against Henry, who was formerly his most intimate friend, as nothing can persuade him that the accusation did not proceed from the purest malice on the part of the would-be suicide. ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... to action, he was ready to move before even his would-be conquerors, in those slow-going days, imagined he had thought of resistance. Money and men were raised, the alliance of England and Holland was secretly obtained, a council of defence was appointed to govern Sweden during the absence of the king, and on April 23, 1700, two months before his eighteenth ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... the would-be physician or surgeon could gather herbs for his master and assist him in treating the sick. If the apprentice could read, or if the master would teach him, then the novice could study the medical books in the doctor's ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... was Lord Ronald Engleton, an orphan brought up in Paris, a would-be decadent, a dabbler in all modern iniquities, redeemed from folly only by a certain not altogether wholesome cleverness, yet with a disposition which sometimes gained for him friends in most unlikely quarters. He had ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the table and began to write, leaving me to the Chronicle, the pages of which I did not see. Then came Mr. Dix, and such a change I had never beheld in mortal man. In place of the would-be squire I had encountered in Threadneedle Street, here was an unctuous person of business in sober gray; but he still wore the hypocritical smirk with no joy in it. His bow was now all respectful obedience. Comyn acknowledged it with a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bestowed on us. She acclaimed his tricks, she laughed at his anecdotes, she urged him on to further exhibition of prowess, and in a magnificent way appeared unconscious of the presence at the table of her trustee and would-be dragon, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... leader of his society, and he divided his time between Mount St. Agnes and the sisters at Groningen, with occasional visits to Adwert. There he set about reviving the Abbey schools, one elementary, within its walls, the other more advanced, in a village near by; and Abbot Rees warmly supported him. Would-be pupils besought him to teach them Greek and Hebrew. Admiring friends came to hear him talk, and brought their sons to see this glory of their country—Lux mundi, as he was called. Some fragments of his conversation have been preserved, the unquestioned ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen
... make a veritable Lucifer of you. 'Lucifer! LUCIFER! star of the morning! how art thou fallen, and become as one of us!' Ha! ha! ha! yes! yes! you must go with us. We fancy you. For a callow priest, you have a deal of music in you. Would-be Samson, you must grind in our prison house and sport in our temple; the pillars whereof you can never cause ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... heard of them before," he answered. "We met in a certain house-of-call in Hong-Kong, much frequented by Englishmen and Americans; we became friendly with them; we soon found out that they, like ourselves, were adventurers, would-be pirates, buccaneers, ready for any game; we found out, too, that they had money, and could finance any desperate affair that was likely to pay handsomely. My friend and I, at that time, were also in funds—we had ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... The would-be client released a series of smoke-rings and watched them float up toward the air-outlet at the office ceiling. It spoke well for Rand's ability to subordinate esthetic to business considerations that ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... to the throne of Spain. The Archduke Charles of Austria was supported by England, Portugal, and Holland, and was conveyed to the Peninsula and landed at Lisbon by an English fleet under Admiral Rorke. The admiral, having disposed of the would-be king, sailed for Barcelona, which he was told was a ripe plum, ready to fall into his mouth. He was disappointed; Barcelona was by no means ripe for his purposes, and he sailed back, ready for any enterprise ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... and immediately they halted all three, their ferocious looks smitten to surprised dismay—and glancing over my shoulder I beheld the aged person still puffing serenely at his pipe but with his slender right hand grasping a small, silver-mounted pistol levelled at our would-be aggressors across his knee. And there was something very terrible, I thought, ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... else's. And I fancied a tendency to treat it as if it were somebody else's,—to take an ell when we meant to give no more than an inch, and J. was as little inclined as I to furnish a new proof of the wise old proverb. One day a would-be wit who was regular in his attendance and his talk, and who should have known better, asked J., "Are you still running your Thursday Club?" and so helped to precipitate the end. We were not running a Club for ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... and contempt which Italy's treacherous surprise attack and her hypocritical justification aroused here, are quite indescribable. Neither Serbia nor Russia, despite a long and costly war, is hated. Italy, however, or rather those Italian would-be politicians and business men who offer violence to the majority of peaceful Italian people, are unutterably hated." On the other hand German papers spoke with much more moderation and recognized that Italy was acting in ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... recognised as King and Example. The lives of His disciples are full of faults, but they should, and in a measure, do, witness to the reality of His gifts of forgiveness and conquest of sin. He has done more to restore strength to humanity paralysed for good than all other would-be physicians put together have done; and since He has visibly effected such manifest changes on outward lives, it is no rash conclusion to draw that He can change the inward nature. If He has healed the palsy, that is a work surpassing human power, and it proves that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... young men about town,—sharp and able in all affairs except their own. No one knows the world better, nor judges of character more truly, than your half-beggared roue. From all these Baron Levy obtained much the same testimonials: he was ridiculed as a would-be dandy, but respected as a very responsible man of business, and rather liked as a friendly, accommodating species of the Sir Epicure Mammon, who very often did what were thought handsome, liberal things; and, "in short," said one of these experienced referees, "he is the best fellow going—for ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... down on a lower step in front of her father. "Yes," said she. She half laughed up in his face, like a child who knows she has been naughty, yet knows she will not be blamed since she can count so surely on the indulgent love of the would-be blamer. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... roots yet deeper into the soil of Bohemia, the rulers of that country were being drawn into the quarrel between the spiritual and the would-be temporal head of the Church; the "Investiture Strife" gave Vratislav, son of B[vr]etislav I, an opportunity of strengthening his independence and increasing the importance of his country. He took sides with Emperor Henry IV against one ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... she answered in a would-be light manner, 'I have some work to do at the office; we are working overtime, so I shall be late for the next few weeks,' and then she nodded and went off before ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... the pebbles. In the morning we discovered the tracks of wolves approaching our tent from the side opposite to the fire and followed them to where they had begun to dig under the tent wall; but evidently one of the would-be robbers was forced to retreat with a bruise on his head from the handle of ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... his ground. He wished now that he had a club instead of his revolver. The would-be vandal was almost upon him. Mr. Jackson clubbed his rifle and swung it at the fellow. The latter dodged, and came ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... corridor after stumbling through a series of dim, damp rooms, and then found our way effectually blocked by a stout door which was not only locked and bolted, but bore a most startling admonition to would-be trespassers. ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... stood aside at the door respectfully as the old man passed out with his primitive supply of salves and antiseptics, and only when all need of caution was ended the boy smiled at the would-be Lothario, and the smile held a subtle mockery as he murmured, "The saints send you a good night's sleep, senor, and a ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... historic leader, we instinctively feel that these things are almost the last to be considered. For the greatest influence for good has come from men who have struggled in feeble minorities,—ever alienating would-be friends by an invincible honesty, or even by an invincible fanaticism. Not to the excellences or extravagances of a handful of persons who precisely agree with his views of Christianity may we look for the influence of Theodore Parker which to-day works among us. We might find it in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... chapter which he calls "A Golden Age in History" he says some things which we do not find in the works of the would-be historians of this period. On page 509 he writes: "A historian ought not to suppress uncomfortable facts, and it is undeniable that the treatment of the Negroes forms a blot on America's fair name. In parts of the South they are kept in a state of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... importance in the development of modern democracy. The case of the reformers is that heretofore modern democracy has not had a fair opportunity of showing its best possibilities to the world, because the methods of election have persistently set aside the better types of public men, or rather of would-be public men, in favour of mere party hacks. That is a story common to Britain and the American democracies, but in America it was expressed in rather different terms and dealt with in a less analytical fashion than it has been in Great Britain. It was not at first ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... more economical and the walk will be beneficial." While success in his profession seemed now assured, and while orders poured in so fast that he gladly assisted some of his less fortunate brother artists by referring his would-be patrons to them, he also took a deep interest in the general ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... my companion; 'there's a tree! there's something like a tree! How a man must feel to call a tree like that his own! That's Queen Elizabeth's oak. It is indeed. England is dotted with would-be Queen Elizabeth's oaks; but there is the very oak which she admired so much that she ordered luncheon to be served under it.... Ah! she knew the value of timber—did good Queen Bess. That's now—now—let me see—the year after the Armada—nine from fifteen—ah well, somewhere about two hundred ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the bodies having failed, we gave orders that this tomb should be regarded as their sepulchre, and that its mouth should be sealed up. According to the natives, there was evidently a vast hoard of wealth stored at the bottom of this tomb, and the would-be robbers had met their death at the hands of the demon in charge of it, who had seized each man by the throat as he came down the tunnel and had ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... together again was the question that puzzled Ted, for the broncho boys had no mounts with which to pursue the would-be thieves. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... sat in the beech-tree, was at present their guest—as she often was, in a fluctuating or intermittent fashion. She lived in the neighbourhood, but was more at Mortgrange than at home; one consequence of which was, that, as would-be-clever Miss Malliver phrased it, the house was very much B. Wyldered. Nor was that the first house the little lady had bewildered, for she was indeed an importation from a new colony rather startling to sedate old England. Her father, a younger son, had unexpectedly succeeded to the family-property, ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... three rivals overlapping again—the annexing Spaniards, the would-be colonizing French, and the persistently trading English. There were, however, no Spaniards about at that time. This was the second Huguenot colony in Florida. Rene de Laudonniere had founded it in 1564. The first one, founded two years earlier by Jean Ribaut, had failed and Ribaut's men had ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... Coningsburgh, a suitor for the hand of Rowena, and one who considered his union with that lady as a matter already fixed beyond doubt, by the assent of Cedric and her other friends. Rowena herself, however, had never given her consent to such an alliance; and entertained but a poor opinion of her would-be lover, whose pretensions for her hand she had received with marked disdain. Her Saxon lover was not one of her party at the tourney on the second day. He had observed with displeasure that Rowena was selected by the victor on the preceding day as the object of that honour ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... demanded rather that he should always be among them. But the stock that he laid in, turned out to comprise rather such works as a gentleman of learning would choose for company, than such as the people of Philadelphia preferred to read. Furthermore, when some would-be purchaser appeared, it often happened that the book he offered to buy was one for which the erudite dealer had acquired so strong an affection that he would not let it change owners. Nor did his wife much endeavour to turn him from this untradesmanlike ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... when the 'faithful' were scattered out of earshot, the Doctor felt that the opportunity was too good to be missed, and so (while Mme. Verdurin was adding a final word of commendation of Vinteuil's sonata) like a would-be swimmer who jumps into the water, so as to learn, but chooses a moment when there are not too many people looking on: "Yes, indeed; he's what they call a musician di primo cartello!" he exclaimed, with a ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... his feet and confessed the whole truth. Immediately the rumour spread that a priest had attempted to assassinate their favourite preacher, the sick outside burst open the gate, crying, "Deliver the tratour to us, or ellis we will tack him by forse." But the preacher put his arms around his would-be assassin, exclaiming, "Whosoevir trubles him shall truble me, for he has hurte me in nothing, bot ... hes lattin us understand what we may feare in tymes to come"; and so, says Knox, he saved the life of ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... Discourses, and the first that he read placed so much reliance on honest industry, and expressed so strong a conviction that all men are equal in talent, and that application makes all the difference, that the would-be artist, who hitherto had been held back by some distrust of his natural powers, felt that at last his destiny was irrevocably fixed. He announced his intention of adopting an art-career with a determination that demolished all argument, ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... pledge to distribute tracts and hold conventions, while they depended upon the courtesy of the tyrants to protect them in the peaceful execution of their design. Is it any wonder that the descendants of the old heroes who had fought their way to our liberties smiled when the by-laws of the would-be revolt ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... Tyr's mother bade the visitors hide under some huge kettles, which rested upon a beam at the end of the hall, for her husband Hymir was very hasty and often slew his would-be guests with a single baleful glance. The gods quickly followed her advice, and no sooner were they concealed than the old giant Hymir came in. When his wife told him that visitors had come, he frowned so portentously, and flashed such a wrathful look towards their hiding-place, that the ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... disinterestedness of these would-be philosopher looked, at first sight, extremely imposing. Instances were not rare, in which they generously abandoned all the profits of their transmutations - even the honour of the discovery! But this ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... dark places of the earth, and in laying down our human moral laws we have always to be aware of forgetting the fundamental biological relationship of parent and child to which all such moral laws must conform. To some would-be parents that necessity may seem hard. In such a case it is well for them to remember that there is no need to become parents and that we live in an age when it is not difficult to avoid becoming a parent. The world is not dying for lack of parents. On the contrary ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... might effect a compromise, and get somebody to swear that we did not molest your uncle, if we promised five hundred of the thousand ounces that the robbers and would-be assassins obtained," Fred remarked, in an under tone, and in a careless ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... not realize, I could not realize for a long time afterward, that any woman could sink to such moral depravity as that one must have to call a would-be rescuer to death. But it must have been so—the sight of Rokoff there and the woman's later repudiation of me to the police make it impossible to place any other construction upon her acts. Rokoff must have known that I frequently passed ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... purpose, but with that purpose itself, not, in short, with states but with the State. Yet this need not involve that the ideal, the State, is always and everywhere the same. Ideals are born of historical circumstances and fashioned to meet historical problems, and the would-be timeless ideals which political philosophers have put before us have always borne clear marks of the country and time of their origin. The ideal which men have set themselves in political organization has varied from time to time. That such variation is inevitable will be clear if we ask ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... pause, but there is no "laughter." The would-be satellites don't know whom the laugh might be against. His Worship bends over the papers again, and I can see that he is having trouble with that quaintly humorous and kindly smile, or grin, of his. ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... King." He glanced around once more at the foresters. "Which one of you is Allan-a-Dale?" he asked; and Allan came forward. "So," said the King with sober face, "you are that errant minstrel who stole a bride at Plympton, despite her would-be groom and attending Bishop. I heard something of this in former days. Now what excuse have ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the delightfulness of life and art are overstrained into a wearisome literary voluptuousness, where duty has already disappeared and the human sympathies on which duty is based scarcely linger in a faint aesthetic form, soon to leave the would-be exquisiteness to putrefy into the vulgarity of egoism. Such tendencies have less in common with the Hellenic prime than with the court of Leo the Tenth, though even that had perhaps an advantage over them as being in some ways a more real thing. But that the Hellenic ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... Cabinet Minister in Australia to-day) on my father's right. This simple soul made the mistake of endeavouring to establish an affectionate friendship with my father, who was sufficiently resentful of the man's mere proximity, and received his would-be genial advances with the most freezing politeness. But the event which precipitated a crisis was the coal-heaver's removal of his knife from his mouth—the dexterity with which his kind can manipulate these lethal weapons, even when partly intoxicated, is little less than miraculous—after ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... them worse than those of many a man whose ultimate failure has been the sole cause of his excommunication by the society which all the time knew well enough what he was. Often had he been held up by would-be teachers as a pattern to aspiring youth of what might be achieved by unwavering attention to the main chance, combined with unassailable honesty: from his experience they would once more prove to a gaping world the truth of the maxim, the highest intelligible ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... bucket clean, washed the dipper, placed them behind the door. He got wearily into the borrowed fur coat, took a last comprehensive survey of the room from the doorway, went back to erase certain sentences scrawled on the blackboard by some would-be humorist, took another look at the work of his aching hands, and went away with the coffeepot in his hand and the screwdriver showing its battered wooden handle from the top of his pocket. He was too tired to feel any glow of accomplishment, ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... one strong deterrent to a would-be aggressor, another powerful deterrent is defensive power. No enemy is likely to attempt an attack foredoomed ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... their rights. Yesterday morning several parties of tourists had insisted upon an entrance, and in the afternoon, in fulfilment of the Duke's request, two civil guards had been stationed before the door to keep would-be intruders at a distance. ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... thereon. Write, then; write the history of our times; render yourself an organ of the age; assist us, by your writings, in preserving the government and law and order. Defend, with your ringing voice, the actions of the government against the aspersions of this would-be wise, noisy, and miserable people, and you shall have a brilliant position and an annual salary of four thousand florins. You are silent? You are right; consider well what I am proposing to you. I offer you a brilliant position. I will make you the great historian of our ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... representing a jockey at full gallop; cut-away coat, corduroy breeches, and boots with tops of a chalky white. Yet, withal, not the air and walk of a genuine born and bred sporting man, even of the vulgar order. Something about him which reveals the pretender. A would-be hawk with a pigeon's liver,—a would-be sportsman with ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Boone pleasantly. "You see I cannot get down from here and I cannot get away from you." The scout paused a moment and glanced at his would-be captors. ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... he was concerned solely with his humiliation as a would-be host. Not yet had he divined that the deluded Honourable George might go to the unspeakable length of a matrimonial alliance with the woman who had enchained him. And as to his own disaster, he was less than accurate when he said that the whole town was seething with indignation. ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... FRAGRANT THISTLE (C. odoratus or C. pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful, odorous purple or whitish flower-head, that often measures three inches across, with a formidable array of prickly small leaves just below it. In case a would-be pilferer breaks through these lines, however, there is a slight glutinous strip on the outside of the bracts that compose the cup wherein the nectar-filled florets are packed; and here, in sight of Mecca, he meets his ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... work and took her home, the Snowbird and the Mocha Kid made it a practice to take her to supper, and when she received invitations from other sources one or the other of them firmly declined, in her name, and treated the would-be host with such malevolent suspicion that the invitation was never repeated. Far from taking offense at this espionage, Rouletta rather enjoyed it; she grew to like these ruffians, and that liking became mutual. Soon most of them took her into their ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... to our would-be Wall Street magnate. Suppose he has not the "grit" or the "go" (or whatever it would be termed in that classic purlieu so noted for elegance of every-day rhetoric) either to crown himself with the tarnished crown of a ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... have a partner provided for you. Remember the first engagement should always be kept, and if a patroness should honor you with such an invitation, and you have made prior arrangements, you should at once explain by note your position, which will be a sufficient excuse to your would-be hostess. ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... superstitions you can't defend on any ground. You know, at one time, it was considered bad luck to try to save any one who had been partly drowned. There are plenty of people, even nowadays, who won't cut down a would-be suicide who has hanged himself because they think it's ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... through the Kuramae of Asakusa suddenly a hopeful light came into his eye. Abruptly he made his way to the side of the roadway. Here boarding covered the ditch, removing the occupant of a booth erected thereon, and would-be clients, from the passing stream of humanity. There was a table in the booth, and on it were several books, a vessel containing water, brushes (fude), scrolls for writing, and a box containing divining sticks. It was the stand of a strolling ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... How would I now describe the motley groups Which crowd, in thoughtless ease, thy moving road. Mark the young Confidence of yesterday, Offspring of pride, and fortune's blinded fool, (Engender'd like the vermin of an hour) All would-be fashion, elegance, and ease, While, by his side, the weaker vessel smirks, In tawdry finery, with presuming gait, As though the world were made for them alone; Their liveried Lacquey, half-conceal'd in lace, The vulgar wonder of an upstart race. How heartlessly they pass ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... doctor prayed earnestly for a rain of manna or a visitation of ravens, which we knew to be his adroit way of covering a more mercenary petition. But heaven never opened, and a check never fluttered to earth from the only source from which it could be expected. The year ended and our would-be benefactor gave his money outright to Harvard or Yale, I forget which, for a swimming ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... associates put a veto upon the proposed lynching. They said that good government was to prevail in Wilmington from this time, and would commence immediately. The would-be lynchers were so insistent that the Mayor called out a guard and kept the jail surrounded all night. This morning the six Negroes were taken out and escorted to the north bound train by a detachment of militia, to be banished from the city. The citizens cheered ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... spirit becomes an inderri, that is, a medicine-man or medicine-woman and has power to heal the sick. When a person wishes to become a medicine-man or medicine-woman, he or she acts as follows. If a man has died, and his friends are sitting about the corpse lamenting, the would-be medicine-man suddenly begins to shiver and to rub his knee with his folded hands, while he utters a monotonous sound. Gradually he falls into an ecstasy, and if his whole body shakes convulsively, the spirit ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... celebrated quietly at the Clapham parish church. A humiliating day for the stiff-necked old Squire of Stagholme; for he was introduced to many new relatives, who, if they could have bought up Stagholme and its master, were but poorly equipped with the letter "h." The bourgeois ostentation and would-be high-toned graciousness of the ladies, jarred on his nerves as harshly as did the personal appearance ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... at a fresh attempt on my father's life. A man of the name of Meunier fired a pistol at him the day the Chamber of Deputies was opened. Some movement in the crowd shook the would-be assassin's arm, but the bullet came into the carriage, smashing the front window, and my brothers and I were all cut with the broken glass. I remember a very characteristic remark by one of the Deputies on this occasion. After the King had departed, as the ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... word of God have cultivated this mode of delivering it; and it is perhaps equally astonishing how few of those who have cultivated it have done so in earnest. In the last century, promotion in the Church of England was won by literary achievement; but the would-be bishop did not generally think of religious literature: he published a political pamphlet or edited a Greek play. Among the Scottish Moderates there was a keen ambition for literary distinction; but it was the ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... to be regretted, how much is it to be wondered at, that, in a country whose school of painting, though degraded by its system of meretricious coloring, and disgraced by hosts of would-be imitators of inimitable individuals, is yet raised by the distinguished talent of those individuals to a place of well-deserved honor; and the studios of whose sculptors are filled with designs of the most pure simplicity, and ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... bolder and more experienced adventurer might have allowed to escape him. He arrived, and cast around an anxious eye. He found himself involved in an apparent chaos—the whirl of distraction—imbedded amidst a ceaseless turmoil of would-be knowing students, endeavouring to catch the aroma of the pharmacopaeia, or dive to the deep recesses of Scotch law. He sought and cultivated the friendship of the literati; and anticipated a perpetual feast of soul, from a banquet to which one of the most ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... aware that in recent books of Italian history there has been a tendency to whiten the Borgias' characters. But I myself hold to the old romantic black way of looking at the Borgias. I maintain that though you would often in the fifteenth century have heard the snobbish Roman say, in a would-be off-hand tone 'I am dining with the Borgias to-night,' no Roman ever was able to say 'I dined last night ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... good-naturedly. "Perhaps he is only one of the would-be's; I don't think it has got much farther than the hankering, as yet. There was a book manuscript in one of his valises, and I read a little of it. It was pretty poor stuff, I thought. But what ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... I won't listen to them. Here you are happily married and all those poor would-be sight-seers sizzling out there in this glaring August sun. I'm ashamed of you!" But his arm was about George's shoulders, and he was wringing the dark, slender hand with a genuine good fellowship that was pleasant ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... market is long on real assassins, fellows who'd kill him for the mere fun of hearing his last words, but when it comes to playing to the galleries with a mock attempt with real consequences to the would-be murderers, ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... The crowd of would-be annuitants grew so thick about them that for some time they could move neither forward nor backward. Graham noticed what appeared to him to be a high proportion of women among the speculators, and was reminded again of the economic independence of their sex. They seemed remarkably ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... cause. Not that that made any difference, for little fanatics like Erkel can never imagine serving a cause except by identifying it with the person who, to their minds, is the expression of it. The sensitive, affectionate and kind-hearted Erkel was perhaps the most callous of Shatov's would-be murderers, and, though he had no personal spite against him, he would have been present at his murder without-the quiver of an eyelid. He had been instructed; for instance, to have a good look at Shatov's surroundings while carrying out his commission, and ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... object, and the party was both large and well- equipped. It consisted of a diamond expert acting on behalf of the Syndicate; another expert acting on behalf of the would-be purchasers, and, incidentally, to watch the other chap; a financial representative of either side to watch proceedings; two prospectors, presumably to watch each other; a learned professor of geology to give an unbiased report of the fields; and, lastly, ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... brain, and so my life will at once be instantly improved out of recognition'—that man is destined to unpleasant surprises. Progress will be slow. Progress may appear to be quite rapid at first, and then a period of futility may set in, and the would-be vanquisher of his brain may suffer a series of the most deadly defeats. And in his pessimism he may imagine that all his pains have gone for nothing, and that the unserious loungers in exhibition ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... patient sufferer tries to be satisfied when he sees 180:6 his would-be healers busy, and his faith in their efforts is somewhat helpful to them and to himself; but in Science one must understand the resusci- 180:9 tating law of Life. This is the seed within itself bearing fruit after its kind, spoken ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... Eustace Leigh with somewhat of aversion, and (being a good Protestant) with a great deal of suspicion, she could not find it in her heart to avoid a chat with him whenever he came down to the farm and to its mill, which he contrived to do, on I know not what would-be errand, almost every day. Her uncle and aunt at first looked stiff enough at these visits, and the latter took care always to make a third in every conversation; but still Mr. Leigh was a gentleman's son, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... depleted of their most energetic men. Every craft that could sail the seas was called into use, and the building of new vessels was hastened to completion in order to provide for the needs of adventurous prospectors and would-be explorers. ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... is forced to live in the country in dependence upon a stern old parent, when he is longing for a jovial life in London taverns. Still he was excusably vexed when Johnson refused to believe in the reality of his complaints, and showed scant sympathy to his noisy would-be fellow-sufferer. Some of Boswell's freaks were, in fact, very trying. Once he gave up writing letters for a long time, to see whether Johnson would be induced to write first. Johnson became anxious, though he half-guessed the truth, and in reference to ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... that hot words were constantly exchanged at the enrolling desk, over would-be members, but not understanding the exact nature of the qualifications needed, he could not follow the disputes. Finally these ceased, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... had intended sending a telegram from Lyons to the proprietor of my favourite hotel (securing apartments), knowing him to be a very decent fellow; but now, perforce," he added with an intent look, trying to read her, "my would-be landlord must go to the wall, while the doors of the villa obey the open sesame of yourself and ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... lighted up the face of the would-be boilermaker, as he stretched out the short sleeve of his thread- bare canvas jacket, and replied, pointing her out, 'On the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... of the would-be mutineer, Badham. It must be remembered that he had committed no overt act of mutiny, and though Captain Hassall was perfectly right in putting him in irons, he could not have been brought to trial on shore. The day ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... service. In 1839 he became sub-prefect for Arcis-sur-Aube, during the electoral period. The delegate, Trailles, satisfied Antonin's rancor against Giguet: his official recommendations caused the latter's defeat. Both the would-be prefect and the sub-prefect vainly sought the hand of Cecile Beauvisage. Goulard cultivated the society of officialdom: Marest, Vinet, Martener, ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... hallucination. Pomeroy dropped off to sleep, but presently was aroused by sounds which were unmistakably caused by a gentle tapping on the window pane. Exasperated, the man arose, picked up a boot, slipped to the window and raised it gently ready to give the joker or would-be burglar a rousing whack on the head if within reach. He stuck his head out of the window for a better view of the exterior world, and his curiosity was rewarded with a stinging blow on the cheek. The pain aroused all the Pomeroy French ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... captive and a culprit, thus converting my own house into a prison, my would-be murderess and former plaything, was intolerably painful. To leave her at large was to incur danger such as I had no right to bring on others. To dismiss her was less perilous than the one course, less painful than the other, but combined peril and pain in a degree which rendered both ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... what she has found. Many among the world's greatest mystics and philosophers have tried for the prizes she has won,—for the world possesses Plato, the Bible and Christ, but in its apparent present ways of living has learned little or nothing from the three, so that other would-be teachers may well despair of carrying persuasion where such mighty predecessors have seemingly failed. The serious and REAL things of life are nowadays made subjects for derision rather than reverence;—then, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... icily at her docks, and the graceful woman had vanished from the cabins where her would-be betrayer had watched her every movement. Fritz Braun's active mind had sounded every danger now encircling ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... the man began to speak again, railing at his would-be murderers. He was talking ramblingly when there came a sound from the opposite side of the rock—a grunt, a curse, and, almost instantly, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... to a fair maid whose acquaintance he formed on a transatlantic voyage last year. The girl's father consented to their union and while joining their hands he said to the would-be bridegroom, "Follin, love and esteem her."—"Of course, I will," was the reply. "Didn't I fall in love ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... the transfer—that is, absolutely unpainted upon. It is pure photography in every sense of the word, and the resultant picture one hardly to be surpassed in any way. I have rather laid a stress on this point, well knowing how pictures are at times irretrievably ruined by the barbarous hand of would-be artists, who by far exceed the true artists in number; and the hint on retouching should not be lost sight of, either, at a period when the tendency is to stereotype every one in marble-like texture, or rather lack of texture, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... Wells and Miss Porter had tip-toed close and were peering interestedly at him, but he shut his eyes and would not see or hear. He did not "want to be bothered," it was only too evident, and as the ship's bell chimed the hour of noon and the watch changed, his would-be visitors slipped silently away and he ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... leader of majority coalition is usually appointed prime minister by president; deputy prime ministers appointed by president election results: Sellapan Rama (S. R.) NATHAN appointed president in August 2005 after Presidential Elections Committee disqualified three other would-be candidates ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... it signify, Father? But I intend to show these would-be wits what the blood of a De Croustillac is! Ah! they think to intimidate me! They do not know this sword which, look you, would move in its scabbard! whose steel would blush with indignation if I were ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... may be quicker; their perception is shallower. They know better what to do on an emergency; they know worse how to order their ways. Of course, in this, as in a thousand other matters, Nature will burst out laughing in the face of the would-be philosopher, and bringing forward her town boy, will say, 'Look here!' For the town boys are Nature's boys after all, at least so long as doctrines of self-preservation and ambition have not turned them from children of the kingdom into dirt-worms. But I must stop, for I am getting ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... pollis-force. Sure t'ing. I been-a home to see ma moth. I go-a back to make-a da more mon." He pulled out from his corded bundle of red quilts and coats and rugs some bottles of cheap wine. "I getta place for all you men." He was beginning, thus early in the voyage of these would-be citizens, to prepare to use them in the politics of his over-crowded ward in New York City. "Come-a! We drink-a to Americ. We drink-a to New York. New ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... the accents, soft and low, in which we address the would-be criminal. And if he will not listen, then cry aloud as with the sound of a trumpet: Whosoever robs a temple, if he be a slave or foreigner shall be branded in the face and hands, and scourged, and cast naked beyond the border. And perhaps this ...
— Laws • Plato
... a safe place, also," said Frank, who had already resolved that the would-be robber should never learn from him where he had hidden the key. "If I were a man, I should like to see you hold me down so easily. Let me up, or I'll ...
— Frank Among The Rancheros • Harry Castlemon
... ii. 25,—"Instructing those that oppose themselves," —the purport of his argument being the duty of the whole community to join hands in resisting the enemies of the land. The preacher knew he was directly antagonising the views of his wealthiest parishioner and the father of his would-be wife, but that fact only served to make him speak the more forcefully and fervently. However hard and stern the old Presbyterian faith was, its upholders had the merit of knowing what they believed, and of stating that belief ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... quite otherwise. I fear The controversy's growing rather "taydious." Whether by night or day, A fair fare the fare should pay, And Cabby should not overcharge unduly; But this is what riles me, When churl Cabby will not see A would-be fare, but ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... the tent, but they only proved to be those of my watchful attendants; and once more, sick at heart, I began to think that my case was hopeless, because I had not grasped the meaning of the message, which, for aught I knew, might mean that I was to leave my tent as soon as it was dark, to trust my would-be rescuers. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... remove the knife, and his failure to do so saved the life of the photographer, who in consequence practically lost no blood and whose cortex was skilfully hooked up by a dextrous surgeon. In a month he was out. In another the police had caught the would-be murderer and he was soon convicted and sentenced to State prison, under a contract with the assistant to be paid two hundred and fifty dollars for each year he had to serve. Evidently the lover and his mistress ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... Arden and Eden. They completely, in the first place, put a stop to anything like systematic bullying. Of course, they could not at all times restrain the tempers of their companions, or prevent the strong from oppressing or striking the weak when no one was present. Bullies and tyrants, or would-be bullies and tyrants, are to be found everywhere; but when any little fellow complained to them, they never failed to punish the bully, and to bring to light any act of injustice, making the unjust doer right the wronged one. They did their utmost to put a stop to swearing or ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... courage born of his knowledge of the young lady's kind heart, Hannibal now turned his attention toward her. He begged her to plead with his would-be executioner to give him one more chance for his life, and reiterated his promises to cease meddling with all of their affairs if this was granted. As he spoke Daisy crept nearer to Roseleaf's side, and when he paused for a moment ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... assassinated by an emissary of the Jesuits. Maurice of Orange, his son, almost met the same fate, and the would-be murderer confessed. Three Jesuits were hanged for attempting the life of Elizabeth, Queen of England; and later, another, Parry, was drawn and quartered. Two years later another was executed for participating in an attempt on the Queen's life; and at later ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... as well known as you if his name gets into your verses; and as for the difference between good and bad fame, it is a mere trifle.' The advice was far too good to be taken. But what has happened? The petty would-be Popes, but for the real Pope, would have been entirely forgotten. As it is, only their names survive in the index to the Dunciad; their indecencies and dastardly blockheadisms are as dead as Queen Anne; and if the historian or the moralist seeks ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... patrons were Henry Burgum and George Catcott, a pair of pewterers, the former vulgar and uneducated but very ambitious to be thought a man of good birth and education, the latter a credulous, selfish and none too scrupulous fellow, a would-be antiquary, of whom there is the most delightfully absurd description in Boswell's Johnson. The biographer relates that in the year 1776 Johnson and he were on a visit to Bristol and were induced ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... midnight the would-be ascetic announced: "This is the time to give up my home and seek for God. Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?" God whispered, "I," but the ears of the man were stopped. With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed. The man said, "Who are ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore
... glutted by burning homes and outraged women; the chances in it, well improved on both sides, for brutish men to grow more brutish, and for honorable gentlemen to degenerate into thieves and sots. War may be an armed angel with a mission, but she has the personal habits of the slums. This would-be seer who was talking of it, and the real seer who listened, knew no more of war as it was, than I had done in my cherry-tree time, when I dreamed of bannered legions of crusaders ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... to gain by the harbouring of ancient grievances," the Duke replied. "I have always known Sir Michael as a just if a somewhat stern man. Please, however, do not look upon me in any way as a would-be mediator. My interest in this matter ceases with ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a would-be client had stated the facts of his case, Mr. Lincoln replied: "Yes; there is no reasonable doubt but I can gain your case for you. I can set a whole neighborhood at loggerheads. I can distress a widowed mother and her six fatherless children, and thereby get for you $600, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... old son-of-a-gun! I'm sure glad to see you. Heard you was back. Say, you've ce'tainly been goin' some. Suits me. I never did like either Dug or Miller a whole lot. Dug's one sure-enough bad man and Miller's a tinhorn would-be. What you did to both of 'em was a-plenty. But keep yore eye peeled, old-timer. Miller's where he belongs again, but Dug's still on the range, and you can bet he's seein' red these days. He'll gun you if he gets half ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... lore, came up to and said to him, 'Sheridan, how came you to be so ready with that passage? It is certainly as you say, but I was not aware of it before you quoted it.' Sheridan was wise enough to keep his own counsel for the time, but must have felt delightfully tickled at the ignorance of the would-be savants with whom he was politically associated. Probably Sheridan could not at any time have quoted a whole passage of Greek on the spur of the moment; but it is certain that he had not kept up his classics, and at the ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... "extra" is snapped up with unfailing alacrity. The usual procedure is now reversed, for the newsboy is no longer seen racing at the beck of some haughty customer, but continues on his lordly way and allows the would-be purchaser to rush to him, or even run down the streets after him. The great journals seem unable to turn out enough editions or to get them out fast enough to meet the demand. The authorities, however, ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... "Do you reckon I'm a-goin' to sit quiet here for a week an' let any blanked wharf rat own that there fo'c's'le just because I got a lot o' white-livered cowards aboard? No sir! You're a-goin' down after that would-be bad man an' fetch him up dead or alive," and with that he started menacingly toward the three who stood near the hatch, holding their firearms safely out of ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... He eyed the would-be recruit with no very favourable expression on his face, as he prepared to take down the answers to the questions ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... as an invention of the would-be-free. It was a brilliant flash of genius of a seeker after freedom. However, it became a boomerang. By multiplication and hereditary transmission, the inferiority and the number of the slaves created ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... her own appearance—she had dressed without looking in the glass. Her only object was to dismiss her would-be suitor as speedily as possible. All feelings of shyness, awkwardness, or maiden modesty, were quenched ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and want to finish the night in proper style, and—the cadgers. At about the middle of the night there is a curious break in the company: the tone changes. Up to four o'clock it's the stay-up-all-nights; after that hour it's the get-up-earlys. One minute there would be a would-be viveur, in sleek dress clothes; then along comes a cadger; then along comes a warrior from the battlefield. Then, with drowsy clatter, up comes a gang of roadmen, scavengers, railway workers, and so on. A little ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... goes so far as to assert that Leo X. and Clement VII. wished to give a liberal constitution to Florence, but that their plans were frustrated by the avarice and jealousy of the would-be oligarchs. See Arch. Stor. vol. i. pp. 121,131. The passages quoted from his 'Apologia de' Cappucci,' relative to Machiavelli, Filippo Strozzi, and Francesco Guicciardini (Arch. Stor. vol. i. pp. xxxix. xxxviii.), are ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... proposed to use his power to treat the young prince as a slave. But Hagen's rude fare, and the constant exposure of the past few years, had so developed his strength and courage that he now flew into a Berserker rage,[1] flung thirty men one after another into the sea, and so terrified his would-be master that he promised to bear him and the three maidens in safety to his father's court. [Footnote 1: See Guerber's Myths ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... then, remains? The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between me and law. —Aye, aye, 'tis so. —Is heaven a murderer .. when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together? —And would I be a murderer, then, if —and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket's end against the door. On this level, Ahab's ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... British when they came. So no efforts were being spared and no stones left unturned to find them. The hooks on the wall were sharp and ready, so that they might be impaled without loss of time in full view of their would-be rescuers. ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... high-handed, high and mighty; contumelious, supercilious, overbearing, intolerant, domineering, overweening, high-flown. flippant, pert, fresh [U. S.], cavalier, saucy, forward, impertinent, malapert. precocious, assuming, would-be, bumptious. bluff; brazen, shameless, aweless, unblushlng[obs3], unabashed; brazen, boldfaced-, barefaced-, brazen-faced; dead to shame, lost to shame. impudent, audacious, presumptuous, free and easy, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... happily for Francesca, he was not one of those men who are easily influenced by the opinion of others. He formed his own judgment, and pursued his own line of conduct undisturbed by the comments and animadversions of his would-be advisers. His young wife was much too precious to him, much too perfect in his sight, her whole life bore too visibly the stamp of God's dealings with her, for him to dream of interfering with the course she had taken. On the contrary, he looked upon her with that affectionate veneration ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... much too small for her, so that she could find no place in it. To explain this dream as a wish is easy when we remember that to be "big" is a frequently expressed wish of all children. The bigness of the bed reminded Miss Little-Would-be-Big only too forcibly of her smallness. This nasty situation became righted in her dream, and she grew so big that the bed now ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... "A would-be author only," laughed Harlan, the colour mounting to his temples. "I've done newspaper work heretofore, and now I'm going to try ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... the servants of the public.—If a dinner- giving blue (and none others succeed well or long), Champagne and ice and the best of fish are indispensable. She may then be at home once a week in the evening, with a chance of having her house fuller than it can hold, of all the would-be wits and three or four of the leaders of London. Very thankful she must be for the honour of their company. She had need to have all the superlatives, in and out of the English language, at her tongue's end; and when she has exhausted these, then she must invent new. ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... perplexities of Hermenegildo Salvatierra would have been over, when suddenly the savage started and fell back in a paroxysm of terror. The Commander slept peacefully, but his right eye, widely opened, fixed and unaltered, glared coldly on the would-be assassin. The man fell to the earth in a fit, and ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... determined to kill her by every means in its power, the empty theorizing of professors who do not see things, but only the imaginary figures of their theories, continues to regard England as in some way under a German debt, and subject to the duty of admiring her would-be murderer. ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... surrounded by a thousand armed guards. Pausanias indeed was noble, and known to the prince, but Ferdinand of Spain was stabbed in the neck by a poor and miserable Spaniard; and though the wound was not mortal, it sufficed to show that neither courage nor opportunity were wanting to the would-be-assassin. A Dervish, or Turkish priest, drew his scimitar on Bajazet, father of the Sultan now reigning, and if he did not wound him, it was from no lack either of daring or of opportunity. And I believe that there are many who in their minds desire the deed, no punishment or danger attending ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli |
