"Wan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stars of heaven, how few and wan Are all we see below Compared with what remain unseen ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... persistent knock, and I beheld Miss Charity's meager figure outlined against walls and a flight of uncarpeted stairs such as I had never seen before out of a tenement house. I may have dropped my eyes, but I recovered myself immediately. Marking the slow awakening of pleasure in the wan old face as she recognized me, I uttered some apology for my early call and then waited to see if she would ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... we saw the Jew, down-trodden, oppressed, wretched, but still proud, the unhappiest creature, this Tiberian descendant of David, in all the Holy Land, with his long yellow cloak, his hair hanging upon his shoulders in corkscrew curls, and an expression on his wan, sallow face that would force tears from your eyes if you did not know that his life is ordinarily as contemptible as his condition is pitiable. We spent an hour or more in one of the two boats that to-day make up the entire fishing-fleet of Galilee, and then found hospitable shelter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... safe enough," Mollie said with a wan smile at his vehemence. "I dare say the worst crime these poor people are ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... enter by a soft female voice. The only occupant of the room when she entered was a dark-haired child, some twelve years old perhaps, but small in stature and delicate, and, as appeared to the eye, almost wan. "Well, Ruth dear," said Nina, "is Anton ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... wan, appealing shadow of a smile. "I confess to a certain degree of weariness myself," ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... looks fierce on that green dress—but I reckon blood will tell, even if it's Injun blood. G'wan, or you'll be late and have your trouble for your pay. But hurry back soon's the agony's over; the bread'll be ready to ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... many fingers, be jabers? I nivir putt in a wan; Did ye think I'd be afther jammin' ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... to do with the Highway boy and the plumber?" inquired Mac, in a low tone of voice. "They've both wan, ye see." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do," replied the little girl, spitefully. "Ey hate yo now warser than onny wan else. Ey hate yo because yo are neaw lunger my sister—becose yo 're a grand ledy's dowter, an a grand ledy yersel. Ey hate yo becose yung Ruchot Assheton loves yo—an becose yo ha better luck i' aw things ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... "Dat boat wan't no punk, massa, and it was wuf two dollars in good money," replied the colored man, his eyes brightening, and his expression of cunning becoming more intense, when he realized the possibility of being paid for ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... the moor. There is a deep silence over the heather, for the last bees have left the pink and purple bells. But there is still a wan glow in the air, which gives a sad beauty to the quiet, mournful land. A boy is returning with some cattle after spending the day upon the heath, and he sings as he thinks of his poor home, the blazing sticks on the hearth, the soup, the buckwheat cake, or the potatoes. Through a mask of ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... brave attire. Nothing helped their mistake so much as the swelling of the battered body; inasmuch as the skin was torn and bruised with the flints, so that all the features were blotted out, bloodless and wan. This exasperated the champions who had just promised Fridleif to see that the robbers were extirpated: and they approached the perilous torrent, that they might not seem to tarnish the honour ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Emperor Bidatsu (A.D. 572-585), a memorial sent by Korea to the Yamato Court was illegible to all the officials except one man, by name Wang-sin-i, who seems to have been a descendant of the Paikche emigrant, Wan-i. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... you yet mind at landing how the quay Looked like a blind wet face in waste of wind And washing of wan waves? how the hard mist Made the hills ache? your songs lied loud, my knight, They said my face would burn off cloud and rain Seen once, and fill the crannied land with fire, Kindle the capes in their blind black-gray ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... eightieth year, long after the death of Mme. Hugo. She died only a short time before the poet himself was laid to rest in Paris with magnificent obsequies which an emperor might have envied. In her old age, Juliette Drouet became very white and very wan; yet she never quite lost the charm with which, as a girl, she had ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... Perhaps his tiger's blood cooled then, perhaps Swift pity at his very heart-strings tugged, And he in that black moment of remorse, Seeing how there his nobler self lay slain, Had bartered all this jewel-studded earth To win life's color back to that wan cheek. Ah, let us hope it, and some mercy feel, Since each at compt shall need of mercy have. Now how it happened, whether 't was the wind, Or whether 't was some incorporeal hand That reached down through the dark and did the thing, ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... kiss you, dear, then," said Mrs. Whitney with a wan little smile. "Oh, Polly," when the kiss and two or three others had been dropped on the rosy cheek, "you are sure ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... a child—only a child—living in the shadow of some great sorrow, which, though I did not know it, had pressed close upon us. There flashed before me a vision of my mother lying wan and white on the pillows. And I turned on my face and began ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... other hand, what tools of sufficient hardness, driven by what great force, could hollow out a passage of such length, at such a depth, and such a height? It is certain that after Ts'in conquered the hitherto almost unknown kingdoms of Pa and Shuh (Eastern and Western Sz Ch'wan) a Chinese engineer named Li Ping worked wonders in the canalization of the so-called CH'ENg-tu plain, or the rich level region lying around the capital city of Sz Ch'wan province, which was so long as Shuh endured also the metropolis of Shuh. ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... for me to talk big o' myself. But I've been over thirty year 'board a British man-o'-war—more'n one o' 'em—an' if I wan't able to go mate in a merchanter, I ought to be condemned to be cook's scullion for the rest o' my days. If your honour thinks me worthy o' bein' made first officer o' the Condor, I'll answer for it she won't stray far out o' her course while ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... an' so ye have; it's no wonder, with the tramp ye took. Come, let me put on another frock. I'll take this wan an' clane it for ye, so the misthress will niver know a bit of ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... regiments. The lodges, he said, had been formed under warrants granted for that purpose by the Duke of Cumberland, who was the grand-master of the Orange body, and a field-marshal. It was true the wan-ants had not the name of his royal highness upon them; but he found it difficult to imagine that he was ignorant of the existence of Orange lodges in the army. Mr. Hume moved a string of eleven resolutions upon this subject. Mr. Patten, the chairman of the committee to which ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... walled in On every side by brazen boundaries, That limit the soul's vision and her hope To a red hell or and unpeopled heaven. Yea, I am lost already,—even now Am doomed to flaming torture for my thoughts. O gods! O gods! where shall my soul find peace?" He raised his wan face to the faded skies, Now shadowing into twilight; no response Came from their sunless heights; no miracle, As in the ancient days of answering gods. With a long, shuddering sigh he glanced to earth, Finding ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... Marse Doctor, 'n I follered yer, I want to tell yer:—Mistress 'splained all 'bout dat 'fore she died. Dey wan't nothin' wrong. Her an' her ma was 'feared to let old Master know she hed run 'way an' married Marse Henry. He said he wan't gwine ter will her nary cent. So mistess and her sister, Miss Ellen, arter while, dey fotch her up to de springs. Den ole master he died ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... night when he had seen the Eumenides, he started awake, broken with terror and weak as a child. The dawn was piercing the window curtains with its wan arrows. Evariste's hair, lying tangled on his brow, covered his eyes with a black veil; Elodie, by the bedside, was gently parting the wild locks. She was looking at him now, with a sister's tenderness, while with her handkerchief ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... whom he had lost. I repeated—fervently and sincerely repeated—what I had already said to him in writing. "I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly kindness." Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his wan white hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, and respectfully put it to ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... when I wan't doin' nothin' but tryin' t' tell a story, an' I don't take no chances. Do you remember my boss tellin' that night in the woods how he lost his money ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... play square cards here or you don't play none in my house. No living thumb-nail can nick no cards in my place and get away with it. Three kings and two trays is better than three chickens and two eggs. If you don't like it, g'wan home." ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... communication, and at some distance of time, should both happen to hit upon the same thing, and to give the very same warning. Some years afterwards, when he was taken up in 1715, and committed to the Tower upon suspicion of treasonable practices, which never appeared, his friends said to him that his fortune wan now fulfilled, the Hanover House was the white horse whereof he was admonished to beware. But some time after this, he had a fall from a white horse, and received a blow by which he lost the sight ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... beside the materials. In strong contrast to this beautiful and expensive stuff was the sight which saddened the further corner of the small room. Close under the sloping, blackened ceiling was a mattress laid on the floor, and on it a wan, haggard man, whom Mrs. Rowles supposed to be Thomas Mitchell, though she hardly recognized him. There was also another mattress on the floor. The blankets were few, but well-worn counterpanes covered the beds. A little washstand with broken crockery, a kettle, some jam-pots, and some ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... as the first touch of dawn came into the sky, that unnatural wind ceased, in a single moment; and I could see no sign of the hand. The dawn came slowly, and presently the wan light filled all the room, and made the pale glare of the Electric Pentacle look more unearthly. Yet, it was not until the day had fully come, that I made any attempt to leave the barrier, for I did not know but that there was some method abroad, in the sudden stopping of that wind, ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... peers to see, And the man he loved so tenderly, Fast the tears of Count Roland ran, His visage discolored became, and wan, He swooned for sorrow beyond control. "Alas," said Turpin, "how great ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... pallid floor, The sparkling waves curl up the shore, The August moon is flushed and full; The soft, low winds, the liquid lull, The whited, silent, misty realm, The wan-blue heaven, each ghostly elm, All these, her ministers, conspire To fill my bosom with the fire And sweet delirium of desire. Enchantress! leave thy sheeny height, Descend, be all mine own this night, Transfuse, enfold, entrance me quite! Or break thy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... other was the task of thralls Who had to rear these inner suburbs, Piling the sad Victorian walls Where each wan window laced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... don't find him on the island; there's a bag of corn for bait, an auger to bore the holes and the pins with which to fasten the logs together. Bert and I worked in the shop last night until ten o'clock, making those pins. I think we have everything we wan't, so we'll be off." ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... Tarpeian, Could the wan burghers spy The line of blazing villages Red in the midnight sky, The Fathers of the City, They sat all night and day, For every hour some horseman came With ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... It's come to me what I've been tryin' to think of ever sense I seen you. They ain't the same color; hers is darker, but there is a look in your eyes for all the world as hers used to be when she was a girl, and wan't wearin' her high-heeled shoes and ridin' over our heads. Them times she was as like the Colonel as one pea is like another, and her eyes fairly snapped. Other times they was soft and tender-like, and bright as stars, with a look in 'em which I know now was kinder,—well, ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... one day, Polly, Hickory Hunt, her cousin, and Wan Lee, a Chinese page, were crossing the nursery floor in a Chinese junk. The sea was calm and the sky cloudless. Any change in the weather was as unexpected as it is in books. Suddenly a West Indian Hurricane, purely local in character and unfelt anywhere else, struck ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte
... sight, and weary of waiting, not without some fear that- -as the Negroes would have put it—'If I tap da wan momant ma, I catch da confection,' while, of course, a bucket or two of hot water was emptied on us out of a passing cloud, I got on board the steamer, and away to San Fernando, to wash away dirt and forget fatigue, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... nurse. Anybody would have guessed Miss to have been bred up under the influence of a cruel stepdame, and John to be the fondling of a tender mother. John looked ruddy and plump, with a pair of cheeks like a trumpeter; Miss looked pale and wan, as if she had the green sickness; and no wonder, for John was the darling: he had all the good bits, was crammed with good pullet, chicken, pig, goose, and capon; while Miss had only a little oatmeal and water, or a dry crust without butter. John had his golden pippins, ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... and wan, fond lover, Prithee why so pale? Will, when looking well wont move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... flicker in the dawn, Or like a child that hears a dreadful tale, Or like the roses on a rich man's lawn, When now the suns of Summer are withdrawn, And the loose leaves with a sad wind are stirr'd, Till the wet grass is strewn with petals wan,— So paled the golden Helen at ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... eyes out!" The phrase stung me. With a quick movement, I grasped the hand mirror that lay on the stand by my bed, and looked critically at the image reflected there. Wan, hollow-eyed, with one side of my face and neck still flaming from my burns, I had a quick perception of the way in which my husband, beauty-lover that he is, must have contrasted my appearance with ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... wholeheartedly. As the doctor was preparing to leave, Rajendra and Auddy appeared at the door. The resentment in their faces changed into sympathy as they glanced at the physician and then at my somewhat wan countenance. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... bread and other things; but it was the bread only that Celia saw. With all her might and main, she strove to eat slowly, indifferently, the food he pressed upon her; and as she ate, the tears of shame and of relief coursed down her wan cheeks. He had brought fuel also; and, while she was eating, he seemed to devote all his attention to the making of the fire; when it was burning brightly, and she was leaning back, with her hands covering her face, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... the window. The snow was lying deep on the fields, like a shimmering coat of varnish; the world was bathed in the light of a pale, wan moon. The forest-trees stood out here and there in blue points, like teeth. Large and brilliant the stars looked down, and above the milky way, veiled in vapours, hung the ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... hand. He looked worn and wan, and his face showed pitiful marks of fatigue, loneliness, and sorrow, but the girl was too much incensed by her own disappointment to forgive him for the unexpected trial to which he had ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... ended, and the last lingerer has quitted the church, he turns from the spot whence he has anxiously watched the different members of the departing throng, and feebly crouches down on his knees at the base of a pillar that is near him. His eyes are hollow, and his cheeks are wan; his thin grey hairs are few and fading on his aged head. He makes no effort to follow the crowd and partake their sustenance; no one is left behind to urge, no one returns to lead him to the public meal. Though weak and old, he is perfectly forsaken in his loneliness, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... when, day before yesterday, I looked down into the pit, and saw there, in the gloom made visible by a candle burning while it was broad day above, women sitting on the floor of loose boards, resting against each other, haggard and wan, trying to sleep away the days of terror, while innocent-looking children, four or five years old, clustered around the air-hole, looking up with pale faces and great staring eyes as they heard the singing of the bullets that ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... River, Under the light of a wan low moon, Steady, the paddles; Boatmen, steady,— Why should we reach the ...
— Last Poems • Laurence Hope
... upon the deck by some unseen being's body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go below. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan but wondrous eyes did plainly say—We two ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... thus prepared his audience, looked silently into the fire for another half-hour, until the room was dark, and all the tutor could see was a wan hand fidgeting uneasily on the arm ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... the night was stark black and loud with clashing waters. A fitful wind played in gusts now grim, now groping, like a lost thing blundering blindly about in that deep darkness. Ashore a few wan lights, widely spaced, winked uncertainly, withdrawn in vast remoteness; those near at hand, of the anchored shipping, skipped and swayed and flickered in mad mazes of goblin dance. To him who paced those vacant, darkened decks, the sense ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... shall the tale be now dancing is over, And kind on the meadow sits maiden by man, And the old man bethinks him of days of the lover, And the warrior remembers the field that he wan? ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... got teu chickens for him here, and mother said they hadn't ought to be kept no longer, and if he wan't to hum, I were to ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... The father was prepared to be proud of his successful son; and the mother, who had over and over again cautioned him not to overwork himself, was anxious to know that his health was good. She had but little fear as to his success; her fear was that he should come home thin, pale, and wan. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... palmy days, was truly hospitable and generous to all comers. Thomas never forgot his reception, and now he was a proud and happy man to be enabled thus to offer 'a slight return,' as he modestly said, to one of the family. With much concern we all viewed Miss Marion's wan and careworn looks, so touching in the young; 'But her dim blue een will get bright again, and she'll fill out—never fear,' said Martha Wesley to me, by way of comfort and encouragement, 'now we've got her amongst us, poor dear. I doubt those proud Misses ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... in clare county, More betoken, iv bin onaisy about ye yer so bowld an Rekles. but this is wurst ov all. iv no noshun o them sandle-wood skooners. the Haf ov thems pirits and The other hafs no better, whats wus is that my owld master was drownded in wan, or out o wan, but shure its All the Saim. down he wint and that ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the roses was published in 1858. Probably the little book won no attention; it is not popular even now. Yet the lyrics remain in memories which forget all but a general impression of the vast "Earthly Paradise," that huge decorative poem, in which slim maidens and green-clad men, and waters wan, and flowering apple trees, and rich palaces are all mingled as on some long ancient tapestry, shaken a little by the wind of death. They are not living and breathing people, these persons of the fables; they are but shadows, beautiful and faint, and their poem is ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... conventional long form: none conventional short form: Taiwan local long form: none local short form: T'ai-wan former: Formosa ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... alcove at the end of the main aisle, was so placed that, when the curtains were drawn aside, he could, at will, look down the long rows of beds where once the looms had clattered, and watch wan faces, and recumbent forms under the white spreads, and nurses, some garbed in white, and some in blue, and some in more sober colors, moving gently about among the sufferers in performance of their thrice-blest and most angelic tasks. It was there that he ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... bridal bed, its furniture being of white satin richly embroidered; the curtains half closed; and suspended from the canopy was a wreath of roses that had once emulated, or rather excelled, the lustrous purity of the hangings, but now were wan and withered. The centre of the inlaid and polished floor of the apartment was covered with a Tournay carpet of brilliant yet tasteful decoration. An old cabinet of fanciful workmanship, some chairs of ebony, and some girandoles of silver completed the furniture ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... on everything, a soft, glowing sheen of phosphorescence from the rocks rising to meet the pale wan starlight. The night air was soft, with a gentle breeze that rippled the distant lake into a great spread of gold and ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... an old woman. I did go through with everything that night. 'T was that time Dan'l broke his leg, you know; they was takin' a deck load of oak knees down by the packet, and one on 'em rolled down from the top of the pile and struck him just below the knee. He was poling, for there wan't a breath o' wind, and he always felt certain there was somethin' mysterious about it. He'd had a good deal worse knocks than that seemed to be, as only left a black and blue spot, and he said he never see a deck load o' timber piled securer. ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... manner of man this was who was passing into the larger space and wan sunlight of Euston Road, making for London Bridge, with but little hurry, and always with his eyes regarding the withered trees, or the closed shops, or the early omnibuses, with an observation that had no curiosity in it, rather as if these were mere passing phenomena ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... glanced at her in dismay. She looked very wan and fragile sitting there; whatever the truth, he could not but feel deeply sorry ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... what wud you like?' she says, and Danny ups and says, 'Chockaluts and candy men and taffy and curren' buns and ginger bread,' and she had every wan of them." ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... painful subject by saying that now the British had driven back the Bosche everything would be quite all right. With a wan smile she agreed. ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... if he doesn't,' replied her father, with a wan smile. 'Now, run away, my love, I am busy. To-morrow we shall settle the question of ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... our weeding and cultivating the garden, or our reading. Of the latter, I had many times endeavored to give her some idea, showing her the plates in the Family Bible, and doing my best to explain them to her, but of late I had quite lost sight of her. Now, how changed, how wan she looked! As I addressed her with my ordinary phrase, "Tshah-ko-zhah?" (What is it?) she gave a sigh that was almost a sob. She did not beg, but ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... a dozen or so of wan faced reporters, in massive beards and black hats, pressed eagerly through the crowd, and went to work like beavers dotting down all that was said, and a little more. Then commenced the address by Alderman Dan Dooley, whose breath was redolent of anything but the balm of a thousand flowers, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... fifteen years she suffered unceasing and intense bodily pain. Imprisoned in her sick chamber, she fought her long, hard battle. The pain-distorted limbs lost their use, the patient face waxed more wan, and the traces of agony were on it always; the soft, loving eyes were often tear washed. The fires were hot, and they burned on through the long, long years without respite. The mystery of it all was too deep for me; it was too deep for her. But ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... quite different sources, I surveyed this woman, white against the pale green of the curtain before which she stood, and imperceptibly but surely the glowing attractions of the gay-hearted widow who had found a child to love, faded before the cold loveliness of this bereaved mother, wan with suffering and alive with terrors of whose depth I could judge from the clutch with which she still held my ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... the rear seat, already were on their feet. Jack stood beside Frank, peering into the shadows behind. The moon was in its first quarter, low down and shed only a faint radiance. But even by the wan light, it could be seen that something dire had happened to the car of the bandits. It stood sideways across the road, leaning drunkenly to one side. And to the ears of the boys came groans from a number of dark ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... a wan smile, and, resuming his seat, sat sipping his tea in silence for some moments. At length he sighed so heavily that she ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... found even the most seasoned of them grimly silent. Their faces, set, as in plaster cast along cadaverous lines, deeply furrowed and caked with dust, perspiration, and powder smoke, made hideous appearance. Never have I seen such wan, frightful expression in human eye. As grim automatons they handled their guns, and moved silently about. Possibly they were too wearied to talk; for to speak, so as to be heard, meant calling at the ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... face looked wan and sad and it seemed to the Motor Maids that Miss Campbell might not have been so severe; but as a housekeeper, that small, ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... workroom free. The toilsome shop is closed, and also he Who for the week stood there doth taste the sweets Of liberty awhile; the penman meets No more the tiring scroll; and now in chain The prisoner sits within his dungeon, wan And weary; but he hears some soothing strain Break through the thick and iron-girded wall; And then the heavy shackles seem to fall From off his feet; a strange emotion fills His soul, and through ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... ebwch ddiwybod; Ei deg rudd, lle gwelwyd gwrid, A ddeifiodd rhyw ddu ofid; A dygai'r llef y deigr llaith I'r golwg, 'nawr ac eilwaith. 'Roedd gwaelod y trallod trwch I wyr Gallia'n ddirgelwch; Hwy sylwent mai isel-wan A dwl, oedd ei briod lan; Beth fu'r anferth ryferthwy Ni ...
— Gwaith Alun • Alun
... reached the period of the "Wan of the League," as the four later civil wars are often called. The last of the four is ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... a sege, the sothe to say, To Harflue town, with royal array; That toune he wan, and made a fray That Fraunce shall rywe ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... saut wind is blawing Upon the misty shore: As, like a stormy snawing, The deid go streaming o'er:— The wan drown'd deid sail wildly Frae out each drumly wave: It's O and O for the weary sea, And ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... morning, when he returned to Hendlip, he was met by two wan, gaunt men, whose countenances showed privation and suffering. They gave their names as William Andrews and ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... invalid-chair and gazed out on Paris, flaming with the ruddy light of the dying sun—seemed too great a strain for her wearied frame. Her attenuated limbs could scarce bear their burden, and she would declare with a wan smile that the blood in her veins would not suffice for a little bird, and that she must have plenty of soup. Morsels of raw meat were dipped in her broth. She had grown to like this mixture, as she longed to be able to go down ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... no bears on this island," replied her companion with a wan smile—no animals bigger than coons, and they couldn't make so much a noise. Besides, I heard him grunt, or moan, as he fell. So it must have been ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... the chamber above, lay the dying child. Had she survived till the following spring, she would then have been eight years old. As Isoult bent over her, a smile broke on the thin wan face, and the little voice said,—"Aunt Isoult!" This was Honour's pet name for her friend; for there was no tie of relationship between them. Isoult softly stroked the fair hair. "Aunt Isoult," the ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... "was as beautiful as ye'd find in a day's thravel, an' 'twas herself that'd dhrive men crazy afther wan look at her. An' she was good to the poor, but divii a bit av love did she have for a redcoat. Whin she'd take human form an' a bowld buck av a British dragoon would come making love to her, 'tis herself would say to him: 'Captain, alannah, would ye oblige me wit' ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... brightening. Great palls of curling smoke rose white and yellow, to turn back as the monuments met their crests, and then to roll upward, blotting out the stars. It was such a light as he had never seen, except in dreams. Pale moonlight and dimmed starlight and wan dawn all vague and strange and shadowy under the wild and vivid light of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... and bloom are faded: Who hath thus Thy state degraded? Death upon Thy form is written; See the wan worn limbs, the smitten ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... promised, but not yielded. Waldemar Daae concealed this near his breast, took his stick in his hand, and the once wealthy man went, with his three daughters, away from Borreby Castle. I blew coldly on his wan cheeks, and ruffled his grey beard and his long white hair. I ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... it as she. But anything is better than degradation such as this. Tell her specially that I have not decided without absolute knowledge." Emily was told. The letter was read to her and by her till she knew it almost by heart. There came upon her a wan look of abject agony, that seemed to rob her at once of her youth and beauty; but even now she would not yield. She did not longer affect to disbelieve the tidings, but said that no man, let him do what he might, could be ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... talk—how de pore wite man 'am kep' down har; how he'm ragged, an' starvin', an' ob no account, 'case de brack man am a slave. How der chil'ren can't get no schulein', how eben de grow'd up ones doan't know nuffin—not eben so much as de pore brack slave, 'case de 'stockracy wan't dar votes, an cudn't get 'em ef dey 'low'd 'em larning. Ef your folks know'd all de trufh—ef dey know'd how both de brack an' de pore w'ite man, am on de groun', and can't git up, ob demselfs—dey'd do suffin'—dey'd ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... I led you into misfortune. Oh, how you have suffered. You are thin and wan. What a wretch am I! When you see me no more ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... known it was wrong,' he returned, a little bewildered by these extraordinary statements. If she had not looked so wan and haggard, he would have accused her ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... many a cruel wound. Said I: "Your love was false while mine was true." Aflood with tears he cried: "It was not so, 'Twas your false love my true love falsely slew - For 'twas your love that was the first to go." Thus did we stand and said no more for shame Till I, seeing his cheek so wan and wet, Sobbed thus: "So be it; my love shall bear the blame; Let us inter them honourably." And yet I swear by all truth human and divine 'Twas his that in its death ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... steadily but strangely and his voice was so low that it was almost a whisper—though it was not one. For the first time she felt something stir in her stunned mind—as if thought were wakening—fear—a vague quaking. Her wan small face began to wonder and in the dark roundness of her eyes a question was to be seen like a drowned thing slowly rising from the deeps of a pool. But she asked no question. She only waited a few moments and let him look at her until she said ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... its ghastly noon, Pauses above the death-still wood—the moon; The night-sprite, sighing, through the dim air stirs; The clouds descend in rain; Mourning, the wan stars wane, Flickering like dying lamps in sepulchres! Haggard as spectres—vision-like and dumb, Dark with the pomp of Death, and moving slow, Towards that sad lair the pale Procession come Where the Grave closes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the eastward the stars are no longer innumerable, and the sky grows wan. Then a faint silvery mist appears above the housetops, and at last in the midst of this there comes a brilliantly shining line—the upper edge of ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... upper air burst into life! And a hundred fire-flags sheen, To and fro they were hurried about! 315 And to and fro, and in and out, The wan ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a tired boy's dreamless slumber. The night deepened. The rain ceased, and a wan and sad moon climbed the sky, wearily, like a tired old woman. In the River Swamp frogs croaked, a whippoorwill at intervals gave its lonesome and lovely call, the shivering-owl's cry making it lovelier by comparison. The cypresses shook blackly ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... wan' t' know whut I think o' you?" said D'ri, looking down at him, his eyes opening wide, his brow ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... hand upon his own roused him to discover the Liane Delorme had seated herself beside him, in a chair that looked the other way, so that her face was not far from his; and he could scarcely be unaware of its hinted beauty, now wan and glimmering in starlight, enigmatic with soft, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... evidently well over seventy, and yet, with one or two exceptions, they had sound limbs, clear eyes, and healthy complexions. As for the young girls, many of them were exceptionally pretty; and the children were sturdy youngsters, not the wan, thin-legged little creatures one sees in Paris. In fact, all of these people appeared to belong to a different race from that of the Parisians, to come from finer, ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... relief than that which came to me with the first flutter of the veined, dark eye-lids upon which my gaze was fastened. A few moments later, and he recognised me; another few minutes, and, leaning shakily on my shoulder, he reached the side of his bunk. When his head touched the pillow, he gave me a wan smile, and— 'So you see you can't trust me to keep house even for one afternoon, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... crowd had passed noisily along, leaving behind it a trail of torn finery, of glittering tinsel and of scarlet berries, when the boom of the big drum and the grating noise of the brass trumpets had somewhat died away, wan faces, pale with anxiety, would peer from out the darkness, and nervous hands would grasp with trembling fingers the small bundles of poor belongings tied up ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... he came, though pale and wan, He look'd so great and high,{C} So noble was his manly front, So calm his steadfast eye;— The rabble rout forbore to shout, And each man held his breath, For well they knew the hero's soul Was face to face with death. And then a mournful shudder Through all the people crept, And some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... days that are no more Stalk around the lakes and meadows, haunting oft the wonted shore,— Hunters from the land of spirits seek the bison and the deer, Where the Saxon now inherits golden field and silver mere; And beside the mound where burried lies the dark-eyed maid he loves, Some tall warrior, wan and wearied, in the misty moonlight moves. See—he stands erect and lingers—stoic still, but loth to go— Clutching in his tawny fingers feathered shaft and polished bow. Never wail or moan he utters and no ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... wan, wan was the bridegroom's face And wan, wan was the bride, But clay-cauld was the young mess-priest ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... condition to attempt this thing. But the woman would certainly die here, too, with out medical assistance—only there was the police! Rhoda Gray's face, as she stood upright in the little aperture again, throwing the wavering candle-rays around her, seemed suddenly to have grown pinched and wan. The police! The police! It was her conscience, then, that was gnawing at her—because of the police! Was that it? Well, there was also, then, another side. Could she turn informer, traitor, become a female Judas to a dying woman, who had sobbed and thanked ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... of his own acute and teeming brain at that moment of exaltation were by no means deficient in those energetic and highly vital globules on whose reparative worth he so eloquently descanted. "Sure, the Professor makes annywan see right inside wan's own vascular system," Callaghan whispered aside to me, ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... and soon heard the tread of horses. He knew that they must be the cavalry of his own army, but he withdrew into the bushes until he was assured. A dozen men riding slowly and warily came into view, and though the moonlight was wan he recognized them at once. When they were opposite him he stepped from ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... poor wan cheek on the merciful old book, as on her mother's breast, and gave up all the tangled skein of life into the hands of Infinite Pity. There seemed a consoling presence in the room, and her ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... maid of Meurs thirty and six years spent, Fourteen of which she took no nourishment; Thus pale and wan she sits sad and alone, A garden's all she loves to ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... opened wide the eyes of the Chevalier, who had been sorely smitten through the friends of his heart, out at sea Night and Death were closing the eyes of another wan old man who had been a traitor to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... background, which is one of the most valuable a woman can possess. Against the hot, hideous red of the wall-paper and the mass of tawdry ornaments she seemed to gain in simplicity, and that peculiar clearness of hers was intensified. She was grave, and only gave Ishmael the ghost of a little wan smile on his entry over his tendered bouquet. She dispensed tea with her firm, rather square hands, hands with short, blunt-tipped fingers that yet were not without the beauty of fitting in with her puma-like solidity of frame; while the way in which she used them was grace itself. They were the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... a little sheltered gorge was a wan, dishevelled figure, bloodstained and ghastly. And Fritz, springing forward, caught the lad in his strong arms, whilst he fell to feeble sobbing in the plenitude of his thankfulness ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the task, The sad tidings to tell you!— An orphan you were Ere this misery befell you; And far in yon wild, Where the dead-tapers hover, So cold, cold and wan Lies the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... and do yt in a panne nyn [1] eyryn wyth al the wyte and swyng hem wel and cast therto and colowre yt wyth safroun and boyl it tyl yt wexe thikke and thanne seth [2] yt thorw a culdore [3] and nym that, leyyth [4] and presse yt up on a bord and wan yt ys cold larde it and scher yt on schyverys and roste yt on a grydern ...
— The Forme of Cury • Samuel Pegge
... wan who comes routin' me out av bed at such an hour, an' may the devil fly off wid yez for that same," growled the man. "Go away wid yez, an' niver let me ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... carry Eli Kirke to the docks. 'Twas a wan hope, but in a twinkling I was riding like wind for the barking behind the hill. A white-faced man broke from ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... sorrel for me. He wuz cotched arfter a while, an' I hed some money, so I got some pine plank an' made a coffin dat evenin', an' wrapt Marse Chan's body up in de fleg, and put 'im in de coffin; but I didn' nail de top on strong, 'cause I knowed ole missis wan' see 'im; an' I got a' ambulance, an' set out for home dat night. We reached dyar de nex' evenin', arfter travellin' all dat night ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... of full moon, and on this account, though the sky was lined with a uniform sheet of dripping cloud, ordinary objects out of doors were readily visible. The sad wan light revealed the lonely pedestrian to be a man of supple frame; his gait suggested that he had somewhat passed the period of perfect and instinctive agility, though not so far as to be otherwise than rapid of motion when occasion required. At a rough guess, he might have been about forty years ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... act is reached, and drama merges again into allegory. In the wan light of the moon rag-pickers, men and women, are dragging their hooks through the slimy muck that flows through the open sewer beneath the fatal window. They sing mockingly to the moon. A flash of light from Fujiyama awakens a glimmer in the ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Panurge so planned as to be chased by the night- watch. He was very tall and strong in those days, a trained shoulder- hitter, and could run like a deer. He was hunted to the Thames, and there they thought they had him. But the Romany Rye made for the edge, and leaping into the wan water, like the Squyre in the old ballad, swam to ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... falchion, and on every side Trench the black earth a cubit long and wide: To all the shades around libations pour, And o'er the ingredients strew the hallow'd flour: New wine and milk, with honey temper'd bring, And living water from the crystal spring. Then the wan shades and feeble ghosts implore, With promised offerings on thy native shore; A barren cow, the stateliest of the isle, And heap'd with various wealth, a blazing pile: These to the rest; but to the seer must bleed A sable ram, the pride of all thy breed. These solemn vows and holy ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... individual clad in black whom Wilkie had addressed as Philippe, and who had endeavored to prevent him from entering the restaurant, come out, and walk rapidly away. He was warmly clad in a thick overcoat, but he shivered, and his pale, wan face betrayed the man who is a martyr to the pleasures of others—the man who is condemned to be up all night and sleep only in the daytime—the man who can tell you how much folly and beastliness lurk in the depths of the wine-cup, and who knows exactly how many yawns are expressed by the verb ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... him to take as trifles things that civilization usually regarded as onerous, and he felt quite comfortable where he lay. He knew that it was growing cold in the gorge, and the shelter of the cabin was acceptable. He saw a little strip of wan twilight through a crack in the window, but it soon faded and pitchy ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... internal arrangement may not be uninteresting. The quarter-deck and poop was set apart for the convalescents; but the heat of the sun was so overpowering, that it was not until late in the afternoon that they could breathe the purer atmosphere. Long confinement below had left them pale and wan, and their unsteady gait proved how much they had suffered in their constitution, and how narrowly they had escaped the grave. To some this escape had been beneficial, as their constant perusal of the Bible established; others, if they even had during their illness alarms about their future state, ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... the hour come for farewell, Now, with the lessened light and darkened days. Who now would tread the wild hill's pathless ways? We found so fair when Spring and Summer's spell Made blind our hearts this parting to foretell. Yet why, while wan and wintry sunlight stays On perished gold of Autumn fields, delays Your heart to speak, while both our hearts rebel? Together we have gathered through the year All that the year could give us of its best, Is it not meet our parting should ...
— All Round the Year • Edith Nesbit
... it was little more than quarter-moon, and a long train of funereal clouds were sailing slowly across the sky—so that, faint and wan as it was, the light seldom shone full out, and was often hidden for a minute or two altogether. When he reached the point in the glen where the castle-stairs were wont to be, he could see nothing of them, and above, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... after that a small and partly ruinous tenement in the outskirts of A. received a new family. The group consisted of four children, whose wan and wistful countenances, and still, unchildlike deportment, testified an early acquaintance with want and sorrow. There was the mother, faded and care-worn, whose dark and melancholy eyes, pale cheeks, and compressed lips told of years of anxiety and endurance. There was the father, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... at Ruth's door. It opened and a wan and pathetically drooping little figure stood before him. Ever since she had been awake Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit of memory illumination which had come the night before. No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... and the old woman would have withdrawn the light. He moved uneasily. "Not that," he murmured,—"light to the last!" and putting forth his wan hand, he drew aside the curtain so that the light might fall ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that corner of the room into darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie. The child had thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she lay with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight night-gown. Her little face, deprived of the lustre of her eyes, looked wan and pinched, and had a pathetic expression in it, even as she slept. The poor father looked and looked with hungry, wistful eyes, into which the big tears came swelling up slowly, and dropped heavily down, as he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry with herself ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... the wan face arrested the watcher's attention and stooping closely down he saw that the man was trying to communicate something ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... as she had trussed them for nearly fourscore years—all leg and no breast. And the hundred hints anent effective cleaning and labour-lightening and the things that make for wholesomeness which the young woman was ready to impart or to put into action dropped away into nothingness before that wan, muttering, unheeding presence. Above all, the coveted window corner, that was to be a dainty, cheerful oasis in the gaunt old kitchen, stood now choked and lumbered with a litter of odds and ends that Emma, for all her nominal authority, would ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki |
