"Wistful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mother had observed that the end of Marcella's progress had been somewhat different from the beginning; that the girl's greetings had been gentler, her smiles softer; and that in particular she had taken some pains, some wistful pains, to make Hallin talk to her. Lord Maxwell—ignorant of the Wandle incident—was charmed with her, and openly said so, both to the mother and Lady Winterbourne, in his hearty old man's way. Only Miss ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of very tall women in large highly-decorated hats, smooth-haired young men in coats that went in at the waist, a very few serious amateurs with longish hair, whose appearance did not quite come up to the standard of the Tailor and Cutter, and a small number of wistful professional feminine artists in no collars and pince-nez—in fact, the average fashionable, artistic crowd. The two young geniuses, George Ranger and Nevil Butt, had just given their rather electrifying performance, one playing the compositions of the other, and then both singing Faure ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... the dismay in his voice. "Indeed, I have been here six weeks." She looked out over the shimmering moonlit waters of the Tagus and the shadowy, ghostly ships of the British fleet that rode at anchor there, and her eyes were wistful. Her fingers, with that little gesture peculiar to her in moments of constraint, were again entwining themselves in her rope of pearls. "Yes," she said almost musingly, "I think I ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... Many a tender, wistful thought Winnie sent to Miss Latimer, though she had never managed to visit Dingle Cottage a second time. Her precious volumes were read and re-read over and over again; and it seemed as it Aunt Judith's quiet, peaceful ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... Alice associate with such people," objected Miss Flower. Then, softened by the wistful eagerness of Alice's face, she added, "Still, in this case, the child is so young that I really think there would be no harm, except that the manager might object to having the little girl ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... interesting scene from the wild and wonderful in Nature. Its romantic luxuriance must win the attention of the artist, and the admiration of the less wistful beholder; while the philosophic mind, unaccustomed to vulgar wonder, may seek in its formation the cause of some of the most important changes of the earth's surface. Our esteemed friend and correspondent Vyvyan, is probably familiar with the locality of Lydford: his fancy might ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... as his mother had shut the door, Timmy sat up in bed, and then he gave a smothered cry. It was as if he had seen flash out into the darkness his beloved cat's wistful face, her beautiful, big, china-blue eyes, gazing confidently at him, as if to say, "You'll save me, Master, ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... his eyes were wistful. Many times during the afternoon he thought of Schmidt's remark. Roger's education and reading had long ago persuaded him that Germany was the land for the thinker, that there a man would not have to struggle for ten years to give birth to an idea such as ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... snowdrift," said one. "The irascible old white-haired gentleman in the Pullman smoker; the good-natured travelling salesman; the wistful young widow in the day coach, with her six-year-old blue-eyed little daughter. A coal-black Pullman porter who braves the shrieking gale to bring in a tree from the copse along the track. Red-headed brakeman (kiddies of his own at home), frostbitten by standing all night between the couplings, ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... embarrassed eyes, tried to see some resemblance, in the little blue-red oval, to the sad, wistful face of his brother, which even then was haunting him from some mysterious distance. He kissed the child's forehead, but even then so vaguely and perfunctorily, that the mother sighed, and drew ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... scene-pictures that succeeded each other in stately procession. Purple loosestrife arrived early, shaking luxuriant tangled locks along the edge of the mirror whence its own face laughed back at it. Willow-herb, tender and wistful, like a pink sunset cloud, was not slow to follow. Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand with the white, crept forth to take its place in the line; and at last one morning the diffident and delaying dog-rose stepped delicately on the stage, ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... turned, she saw his face. It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid mouth and cheek and throat, but the nose was not coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and intelligent. In the brown eyes there was, the girl thought, a look of wistful sadness, as though there were memories ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... rails of action once again, it was not quite the same Martin Gray who uttered the silent cry for companionship that found an answer in Joan's lonely and rebellious heart. Sorrow had strengthened him. Out of the silent manliness of grief he went out again on the great main road with a wistful desire to love and be loved, to find some one with whom to link an arm in an empty world all crowded ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... wistful Jocko Still was with his ancient flame In the nutgroves of Morocco; Or if not ...
— Fly Leaves • C. S. Calverley
... rested thoughtfully on Hartmann's retreating figure. Then a slight sound attracted his attention, and he looked up in time to see Kathrien coming downstairs. Her simple white dress held no touch of mourning, yet she was a wistful, pathetic little ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... trip turns out to have been wisely planned," remarked Dick, a wistful look coming into his eyes. "Of course, I ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... had walked among unusual events—and had not known the wonder of them! I had eyes, but I did not see—and ears, but I heard not. It may be, it may be, that the Future Life of which we have had such confusing but wistful prophecies is only the reliving with a full understanding, of this marvellous Life that we now know. To a full understanding this day, this moment even—here in this quiet room—would contain enough to crowd an eternity. Oh, we are children yet—playing with things much too large for us—much ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... Wilmington laden with rations, and they were dispensed to us with what seemed reckless prodigality. The lid of a box of hard tack would be knocked off, and the contents handed to us as we filed past, with absolute disregard as to quantity. If a prisoner looked wistful after receiving one handful of crackers, another was handed to him; if his long-famished eyes still lingered as if enchained by the rare display of food, the men ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... turns a wistful gaze Across green valleys, back to tender Mays; And something of her large contentment goes, When Roses die; Yet all her subtle fascination stays To lure us into idle, sweet delays. The lowered awning ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... him to a high, dark rock, and, entering a little door, led him to a small cell, dimly lighted by a crevice through which came a single gleam of sunlight; and there, through long, long days, poor Thistle sat alone, and gazed with wistful eyes at the little opening, longing to be out on the green earth. No one came to him, but the silent Brownies who brought his daily food; and with bitter tears he wept for Lily-Bell, mourning his cruelty and selfishness, ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... Faustine. My life, whose whole religion Beauty is, Be charged with sin if ever before yours A lesser feeling crossed my mind than his Who owning grandeur marvels and adores. Nay, rather in my dream-world's ivory tower I made your image the high pearly sill, And mounting there in many a wistful hour, Burdened with love, I trembled and was still, Seeing discovered from that azure height ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... with a crooked, little, wistful smile. "How about you? Do you want to be sheriff? Is it going to make you so awfully happy to spend your time running down outlaws for the good of the country? Aren't you doing it because you've been called to it and ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... the two seamen looked with wistful eyes at the cask of beer in the corner of the tap-room, but Voules, without offering them any, ordered them to hasten back to the boat. They grumbled as they went, looking back to ascertain if the midshipmen had left the inn, resolving to return, should they have ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the full-length windows and opened them; then he unbolted the jalousies outside and swung them back. The musk of autumn weeds breathed in out of the darkness. Peter drew a long breath, with a sort of wistful melting in his chest. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... explain," he said at last. "You're strange to this country, and you don't know all the ins and outs of—things. It wouldn't do any good to you or anybody else, and it might do a lot of harm." His eyes flicked her face with a wistful glance. "You don't know me—I really haven't got any right to ask or expect you to trust me. But I wish you would, to the extent of forgetting that you saw—or thought you saw—anything ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... her last year's blue merino. But it was a pleasant figure to look upon that she tiptoed up to the glass to survey, and a round rosy face, with a little frown over the right eyebrow, that looked out at her with wistful eyes. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... eyes looked into his with wistful tenderness. She had been shocked once before by the fear that there was something in this child's eternal why that would keep him out of the church. The one deep desire of her heart was that he ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... came to an end only with the eight-act drama of "Vendt the Monk" in 1902, and traces of it are to be found in everything that Hamsun ever wrote. Lieutenant Glahn might survive the passions and defiances of his youth and lapse into the more or less wistful resignation of Knut Pedersen from the Northlands, but the cautious, puzzled Knut has moments when he shows not only the Glahn limp but ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... instant in the doorway, casting a wistful, longing look at him, then, with a little sigh, walked softly to the other side of the fire-place, and seated herself ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... One long, sad, wistful look at Guy's and Lucy's home, and Maddy followed Charlie to the buggy waiting for her, bidding him drive rapidly, as there was every indication ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... dozens of grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide expanse of country unfolded from their airy height. Ah! there was much misery in those casernes; and from those roofs, doubtless, many a wistful look was turned in the direction of lovely France. Much had the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said—of England, in general so kind and bountiful. Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... duty called her to much worse places; therefore, when she died, the angels buried her on Sinai," answered the prisoner; before whose wistful eyes drifted the memory of ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... girl's face. It was a childish face, childish in the exquisite smoothness of the soft, pink skin, childish in the wondering stare of the blue eyes, now so widely opened in dismay, childish in the wistful drooping of the ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... stop his work when the great red dying sun began to fade into the west and his round eyes would grow wistful as he looked out over the great city that stretched in towering minarets and lofty spires of purest crystal blue for miles on every side. A fairy city of rarest hue and beauty. A city for the Gods and the Gods were dead. Kiron felt, at such times, the great loneliness that the ...
— The Ultimate Experiment • Thornton DeKy
... Spirits of Peace and Happiness and Love, And thou, too, mild-eyed Spirit of Content, Ye will not chide if sometimes in her play The child should start and droop her shining head, Turning in meek surmise Her wistful eyes Back tow'rd the dimness of our mortal day And the loved home from which her soul was sped. Soon shall our little Wilma learn to be Amid the immortal blest An unrepining guest, Who now, dear heart, is young ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... contemplative, meditative, reflective, cogitative, wistful, pensive, preoccupied, abstracted; considerate, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... mood, something in the jolting of the camion brought to my mind the metre and words of George Amicks' wistful verses, "The Camion Caravan," and I ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... depths below, Where plain and foothills, meet, And smiles a wistful smile to know The world ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... La Fontaine have tended to throw a veil of sentiment over his figure, picturing him as the consoling beatific child of nature, driven by an unsympathetic generation to a wistful companionship with the dumb world of brutes. But nothing could be farther from the truth than this conception. La Fontaine was as unsentimental as Moliere himself. This does not imply that he was unfeeling: feelings he had—delicate and poignant ones; but they ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... thou no lip for welcome?"—So I said. Man after man, the world smiled and pass'd by; A smile of wistful incredulity As though one spake of life ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... It hurt to be so glad. In all these years he had been so utterly lonely, so utterly miserable. His few companions came down to the landing stage on the Bund to see him off, to wish him luck. They were rather wistful, for they also knew loneliness. They had tried to forget about this longing for home in the many ways of forgetfulness that the East offered, nevertheless they were wistful. Lawson understood, he felt great pity for them. He advised them to get ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... with my physical eyes, and a new image, with Time's writing on it, has taken the place of the old and brighter one, I would not have it otherwise. No, not if I could would I call back the vanished lustre, since all these changes, above all that wistful look in the eyes, do but serve to make you dearer, my sister and friend and fellow-traveller in a land where we ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... gazed at her sister with eyes full of wistful admiration. "I wish I could hear about ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... hastened deckwards, and many eyes turned upon them with pleasure as they appeared, so bright and rosy, and unconscious of anything but the enjoyment in hand. Even Lady Moreham's face relaxed, and her eyes followed them with a wistful expression, as she remarked, sotto voce, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... voyagers to your colony of New Amsterdam. But there they gave me no welcome, because I was a Jew;—even in this new country some there are who hate the children of Jacob." He leaned forward, his thin face alight with a wistful hope. "But there they told me of a new colony in the far wilderness,—a colony where men of every race, of every creed, were welcome. Far off in the swamps and forests, they said, a man named Roger Williams had established a refuge for all those who were persecuted and despised, and had ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... a sacrifice by men, due either to unconscious awkwardness, or, occasionally, to conscious brutality towards the tender plant which should have been cherished with peculiar art and love, but has been robbed of the splendor of its development. All her life long, a wistful and trembling woman will preserve the recollection of a brutal wedding night, and, often enough, it remains a perpetual source of inhibition every time that the husband seeks anew to gratify his desires without adapting himself to his wife's desires for love" (O. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... over the coals just now for not doing, if only in gratitude for all the comfort that dog has been to me since I left home. I suppose I'm an ungrateful brute—more so than Wolf, eh, old fellow?"—patting the latter's head again as he looked up into his master's face with his wistful brown eyes, saying as plainly as he could in doggy language how much he would like to be able to speak, so that he could express his ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... girl child standing without self-consciousness by blooming primroses. Modeled faintly on the pedestal are the parents, from whose upturned faces and uplifted hands the primroses seem to spring. In the friezes, wistful old people are borne onward to Destiny in boats manned by joyous chubby children, unconscious of their priceless gift of youth to which their elders look ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... came back again to the end of the barn, Saunders found Jess standing there, with the wistful light in her eyes which that young woman of many accomplishments could summon into them as easily as she could smile. For Jess was a minx—there is no denying the fact. Yet even slow Saunders admitted that, though she was nothing to Meg, of course, still there was something ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... that some day he hoped to go out with the fur traders. In his vocabulary "I wish" occurred with such wistful frequency that finally I inquired curiously what use he would make of ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... notches and the longer ones reached farther and farther along the window-sill, until Ward began to foresee the time when he must start a new row. Day by day his cheek-bones grew more clearly defined, his eyes bigger and more wistful. Day by day his knuckles stood up sharper when he closed his hands, and day by day Nature worked upon his hurt, ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Indian stars, Mumtaz Mahal, I am sitting, Watching them wind their silent way Over your wistful Tomb; Watching the crescent prow Of the moon among them flitting, Fair as the shallop that bore your ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... mornin's, when the winder was open out into the orchard, and the May birds was singin' amidst the apple-blows. The red lips parted with a happy smile; the bright, laughin' eyes, sort o' soft too, and wistful— wishful for the good that mebby come to you, and mebby didn't, but which the glowin' face was sure of, on that spring morning with the May birds singin' outside, and ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... next, the same fall and rise in the book market took place, but on the fourth day the father was too deeply engrossed in work to assist in the replacing of the books: when, lo! the small lad, after a wistful waiting and unanswered call, proceeded to put ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... was a figure which I quickly recognised for Mr. Peter Walpole, though his back was towards me. It was Saturday night, and he had plainly arrived a short time before me, from Norwich. Between the two was my mother, sitting placidly as of old, and unchanged except for a wistful sadness in her eyes, which it smote me to the heart to notice, and beside her a young woman, scarce more than a girl, with a singular sweet expression on her face, who was at ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... Her figure had the slim angularity and primness which are sometimes seen in elderly women who are not matrons, and she had donned a little white lace cap at thirty, but her face had still a delicate bloom, and the wistful wonder of expression which belongs ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... evil had often come to Maurice Frere, and his selfish nature had succumbed to it when in far less witching shape than this fair and innocent child luring him with wistful eyes to win her. What hopes had he not built upon her love; what good resolutions had he not made by reason of the purity and goodness she was to bring to him? As she said, the past was beyond recall; the future—in ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... that they were dead, the girl was left with a fortune almost, three or four thousand duros, to put it low. And how the poor thing loved Tonet! Whenever she met him on the streets of the Cabanal, she always had one of her placid wistful smiles for him; and she spent her afternoons with sina Tona on the beach, just because the old lady was the mother of that bantam who was forever ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... think you've had an escape, Griff; and if I were you, I'd make the best of it." Sir Griffin spoke not another word, but left the church with his friend in the brougham that had brought them, and so he disappears from our story. Mr. Emilius looked after him with wistful eyes, regretful for his fee. Had the baronet been less coarse and violent in his language he would have asked for it; but he feared that he might be cursed in his own church, before his clerk, and abstained. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... the crank while it grinds with a sort of vicious energy that seems in strange harmony with his soul. Sometimes he grinds his teeth as a sort of obbligato accompaniment—especially if he has while on deck, during a wistful gaze at the distant perspective of the aft-regions, beheld, (or fancied he has beheld) a familiar and ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... He liked the strong, worn face, with its half wistful, half resigned expression. An uneasy feeling gripped him that the whim of a moment in the Embankment Hotel might exert its crazy influence in quarters far removed from the track that seemed then to ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... handsome, gentle face of the peasant type, a light, pointed beard, great wistful eyes, and a mass of curly black hair. He was shockingly young for such a sacrifice, and looked more like a Neapolitan than a Cuban. You could imagine him sitting on the quay at Naples or Genoa lolling in the sun and showing his white teeth when he laughed. Around his neck, hanging outside ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... sighed. Then she came a step nearer, and her face grew sweetly wistful. "But your heart, child; what of ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... loveliness, except perhaps as regards her figure, which was agile, rounded, and peculiarly graceful. Her foreign-looking face was unusual, dark-eyed, a somewhat large and very mobile mouth, fair and waving hair, a broad forehead, a sweet and at times wistful face, thoughtful for the most part, but apt to be irradiated by sudden smiles. Not a beautiful woman at all, but ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... and the latest fashion in extremism: France, emerging nerve-racked from a fifty years' obsession and a five years' nightmare, half-dead with sorrow and suspense, yet too proud in victory to own her weakness, looking round, half-defiant, half-wistful, among her allies for one who can understand her unspoken need, and longing, with all the intensity of her sensitive nature, to be able to resume, in security and quietness of mind, the arts and activities of normal life in which she has been, and will be again, the Athens of the modern world: Germany, ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... fragrant shades of a Persian garden, weeping at having to leave the work that he seemed to have only just begun. I think of Dore taking a sad farewell of his unfinished Vale of Tears; of Dickens tearing himself from the manuscript that he knew would never be completed; of Macaulay looking with wistful and longing eyes at the History and The Armada that must for ever stand as 'fragments'; and of a host besides. Life is often represented by a broken column in the church-yard. Men long, but long in vain, for the priceless privilege ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... responded. Her tense muscles relaxed; she forgot to cry. With eyes grown big and wistful, she watched the shining orb. All the bravado, the fear, and rebellion died out of her, and in hushed wonder she got from the great white night what God in heaven meant for ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... blinded by her tears, unable to see or speak, crushed by this last overwhelming blow. Jim sat on the other side of the old missionary, holding his hand. For many moments neither spoke. They glanced at the pale face, watching with eager, wistful eyes for a smile, or ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... the appearance of little Mairi, with whom he had shaken hands a little while before, coming round the table with potatoes. He did not, as a rule, shake hands with servant-maids, but was not this fair-haired, wistful-eyed girl some relative, friend or companion of Shiela's? and had he not already begun to lose all perception of the incongruous or the absurd in the strange pervading charm with which Sheila's presence filled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... on—and so on! After all is said and done one can only give a few hints and suggestions on the servant question, with the wistful hope that they may help some one to "start right," for maids may come and maids may go, but the problem goes marching on. The only way to do when it overtakes one is to grapple with it womanfully, for it will happen, even in ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... wide set and serious; but you might guess that she was a decent sort and more or less sociable. In fact she's starin' across the ten feet or so of air space watchin' our maneuvers kind of interested and wistful. ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... noticed, there was an appealing, wistful look in Aunt Olivia's eyes too, in odd contrast to the firm lips that moved steadily on ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... so simply, too. Malone remembered very clearly the first time he had had any indication that red Cadillacs were anything unusual, or special. Before that, he'd viewed them all with slightly wistful eyes: red, blue, green, gray, white or even black Cadillacs were all the same to him. They spelled luxury and wealth and display and a ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... air will do her good, I trust," casting wistful glances up the stairs and toward the door of the chamber, where girlish voices were heard, Nettie Hudson and Susie Granger chatting gayly and uttering exclamations of delight as they arranged and adjusted Ethelyn's ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... mien. I was not sure that he understood it even in his native tongue, but, whether he did or not, his beaming, wistful look and the deep sigh he emitted indicated that he was in a state similar ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... a fitting ornament. I knew every corner of that house. I have an impression (it is probably a wrong one) of a flagged path going right down from the Parsonage door through another door and plunging among the tombs. I saw six little white and wistful faces looking out of an upper window; I saw six little children going up and up a lane, and I wondered how the tiny feet of babies ever got so far. I saw six little Bronte babies lost in the spaces of the illimitable moors. They went over rough stones and walls and mountain ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... put out his hand, and she laid hers in it, looking up to his face with a smile which would not for the world have been wistful. Suddenly his ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... as full as ever of lively gentlemen with whom, under that designation, she chaffingly talked about him. Maisie meanwhile, as a subject of familiar gossip on what was to be done with her, was left so much to herself that she had hours of wistful thought of the large loose discipline of Mrs. Wix; yet she none the less held it under her father's roof a point of superiority that none of his visitors were ladies. It added to this odd security that she had once heard a gentleman say to him as if it were a great joke and in obvious ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... eyes also which the serene light soothed. Her lips barely moved, just relaxed their firm embrace, but no more. She held the light gratefully with her eyes, seemed unwilling to lose a moment of it, wistful to be still out of doors. Again she lightly sighed, and presently resumed her downward gazing at ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... married in the spring on their return to the village. She had quite forgiven Netawis. Hers was that delicious stage of love when the heart, itself so happy, wants all the world to be happy too. Once or twice John caught her looking at him with eyes a little wistful in their gladness; he never guessed that she had overheard his secret and pitied him, but dared not betray herself. Ononwe, possessed with his new felicity, delighted to talk of it whenever he and John ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a long time, quite oblivious of everything about them. At least Percy talked, for Olga's replies seemed mostly monosyllabic. But she kept bathing him in that mystic moonlight stare of hers and sometimes she showed her teeth in a slow and wistful sort of smile. Percy clattered on, quite unconscious that I was standing in the doorway staring at him. They seemed to be great pals. And I've been wondering what they ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... A longing, wistful expression used to steal over Chingatok's face as he gazed at the southern horizon while listening to these strange rumours, and a very slight smile of incredulity had glimmered on his visage, when it was told him that ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... La Tapera are concerned more with Demetria than the piebalds. She was not an elegant figure, as was natural in a daughter of the grotesque Don Gregorio, but her countenance, as I have said, was attractive on account of its colour and gentle wistful expression, and being the daughter of a man rich in horses she did not want for lovers. In those far-off days the idle, gay, well-dressed young gambler was always a girl's first and often most successful wooer, but at ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... Come in, and I will have it brought,' said Adeline, whose property the cushion was, and who was well pleased that Mr. White came in likewise, and thus had a full view of Maura's great wistful, long-lashed eyes, and delicate refined features, under a little old brown velvet cap, and the slight figure in a gray ulster. He did not speak while Maura answered Miss Adeline's inquiries, but when the cushion had been brought down, and she had ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for politics. Besides, something in the watching eyes—a wistful something which spoke louder than words—had awakened all the lady in her; and there was more of it, I can tell you, than you may be ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... looked around her with wistful eyes, in which her lover read a wish that things would ever remain as they were now—that this moment would ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... was a queer, wistful look in the man's that brought the colour rushing to Faith's cheeks, though she hardly knew why. She stopped dead and looked back through the ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... grief I can not say, 'Tis a strange, a wistful sorrow; Yet through tears at every morrow I behold the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Cambridge has not yet begun to rage.... I rejoiced to see the house of Longfellow. In spite of the fact that he wrote "The Wreck of the Hesperus," he seems to keep his position as the chief minor poet of the English language. And the most American and the most wistful thing in Cambridge was that the children of Cambridge had been guided to buy and make inalienable the land in front of his house, so that his descendant might securely enjoy the free prospect that Longfellow enjoyed. In what other country would just such a delicate, sentimental ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... on his face with such an eager, wistful gaze, as if he wondered his father did not offer relief, that he resolved at once ...
— Bertie and the Gardeners - or, The Way to be Happy • Madeline Leslie
... Wistful upon the strand I gaze Toward heaven, my country's shore, Expecting hence ere long to sail, And sin and weep ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... passed over the girl in those few days. She had drunk of pain and broken bread with sorrow. Her face was pale and strained, with bluish, transparent shadows under her large wistful eyes, out of which the dream and laughter of girlhood had gone, but into which had come the potent charm of grief and patience. Thomas Gordon had shaken his head bodingly when he had looked at her that morning at the ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... she made no resistance; either she was too faint or frightened for that, and suffered herself to be hoisted about, "passive to all changes." Ormiston spread his cloak in the stern of the boat, and laid her tenderly upon it, and though the beautiful, wistful eyes were solemnly and unwinkingly fixed on his face, the pale, sweet lips parted not—uttered never a word. The wet bridal robes were drenched and dripping about her, the long dark hair hung in saturated masses over her neck and arms, and ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... sought the shining blue sky with a wistful, beseeching tenderness. "Oh, it's all wrong, Charlie dear. She ought to tell us in a chant how tired and hopeless she is for this world; and we ought to sing to her something that would cheer her, help her, even in this world. Why must she wait for all her brightness till she dies? ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... to a further season of fret. Day after day the 'fat letters' arrived with the Scottish postmark and the faint perfume that always stirred her own wistful sense of lost romance—something far-off and delicious, with the sweetness of roses and the salt of tears. And still the lover, floating in his golden mist, vouchsafed her ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... her little brother very dearly, but Paul, in the constant companionship of his father, grew up without boys or play. His face was old and wistful, and he had an old-fashioned way of sitting, brooding in his little arm-chair beside his father, looking into the fire. He used to ask strange, wise questions, and the only time he seemed childlike ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... me," he quickly added, withdrawing his hands from his pockets and bowing to her. She slightly inclined her head and smiled sadly. He looked hard at her, striving to read her thoughts; and she was so frail, her face was so thin and her eyes so wistful that she smote him with pity. He reached over and took one of her hands, and affectionately she gave him the other one. She tried to laugh. The cough came again, and she took her hands away. He reached for them, ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... through her fourteenth year sedately, to the sound of Evangeline. Her upright body, her lifted, delicately obstinate, rather wistful face expressed her small, conscious determination to be good. She was silent with emotion when Mrs. Hancock told her she ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... said Panoria. And the little girls, fixing their wistful eyes on the tempting fruit, followed Severia to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... of the heartless, uncharacterized place there was not one gracious inequality to lean against; not a ledge to rest elbow upon; not a panel, not even a stove-pipe hole, to become dearly familiar to the wistful eye; not so much as a genial crack in the plastering, or a companionable rattle in a casement, or a little human obstinacy in a door to base some kind of an acquaintance upon and make one less lonely. Through the grim, untwinkling windows, gaping ...
— Punchinello Vol. 2, No. 28, October 8, 1870 • Various
... and dust-bestrewn hair, in sign of mourning, would not be likely to hearten the alarmed people; but the defeat had clearly shown that something had disturbed the relation to God, and the first necessity was to know what it was. Joshua's prayer is perplexed, and not free from a wistful, backward look, nor from regard to his own reputation; but the soul of it is an earnest desire to know the 'wherefore' of this disaster. It traces the defeat to God, and means really, 'Show me wherefore Thou contendest ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... your pardon! I am so sorry, but I never thought that you were coming, or else I would have stayed at home. I am just out for a little walk." His wistful ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... his face changed; the smile and the triumph died from it. He said no word to Leone, but tore the letter into shreds. She looked on with a wistful face. ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... a story. There is no plot here, he says, and no "punch." He is wrong, although an imperfect abstract like mine cannot convict him. For the narrative presents an unforgettable portrait of wistful hero-worship, set in the dim mists of a Russian river against the barbaric splendor of an Easter midnight mass. To force a climax upon this poignant story would be to spoil it. And when it appears, as it will, in reprint, in some periodical ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... head slightly to one side, and her lips parted. A faraway look came into her eyes for an instant only. Amzi was watching her keenly. He was taken aback by her abrupt change of manner; her sudden sobriety baffled him. Something very sweet and wistful came into her face; something that he had not seen there before, and he was ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... boys' mail, Bud," offered Old Billee, one of the veteran cow punchers of Diamond X. "Don't reckon you got any for me, have you?" he asked with a sort of wistful ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... 'a' been satisfied just to go home and set down and eat my supper, but never mind," sighed Nate in wistful fashion. "Folks is cur'ous about such things. Just because a man don't git sent up for what he didn't do can't make a hero outen him, as I see. But it's nice of you all to care." He looked at Joyce, sitting opposite with Dalton, he and Lucy having been given the back seat ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the narrow street outside. Anthony ran to the window and called to know what was the matter; but no one paid any attention to him; and he presently sat down again in despair, and with one or two wistful looks. ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... not. His eyes grew somewhat wistful as he gazed upon it, and later in the day, when nurse asked him if he would like to have it removed, he shook his ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... with eyes at once wistful and doubtful. Sometimes she shook her head sadly. And I wondered if ever the poor old stumbling crone, wizened like a two-year-old winter apple, had been as light and gay a thing as ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... sat down, was not limpid. He understood naught of it. More than twenty years had passed since they had first met—he and a wistful little creature—at a historic town-hall dance. He could still see the wistful little creature in those placid and pure features, in that buxom body; but now there was a formidable, capable and experienced ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... said, smiling in his wistful face, "we have seen more troubled waters than these, far, and in a much frailer vessel. Do you not remember the Wallenstadt and its miserable skiff? where I have heard you say there was really danger, though we escaped from it all with a ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... tall and compact mould and hardy sinew, was Robert Burns; nor is it possible to imagine any thing more animated than the appearance of those stalwart sons of the soil, as they lingered for a moment before the platform, and looked with wistful eyes at the sons of the Poet, if haply they might trace in their lineaments some resemblance to the features of him whom, from their infancy, they had learned to love. Then came the Freemasons, and King Crispin with his train, and the Archers, and much more of old ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... a long time since I began to lie here. I am afraid it will be many months before I get well again. I think I shall resign myself to proper invalids' fashions. I will have some pretty lace caps, Laura, and we will have more books." Then a wistful expression crossed her face and she said: "I would give anything on earth to walk, even only for ten minutes, by the side of the river; as I lie here I think so much about it. I know it in all its moods—when the wind hurries it and the little wavelets dash along; ...
— My Mother's Rival - Everyday Life Library No. 4 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... for him to depart and despatch the message, but when he took his leave her eyes followed him with a wistful gratitude that sent a thrill to his heart. She had taken him at his word, and had made him ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... so?" inquired Master Naylor. "I'm not very big," he continued, surveying himself in a neighbouring looking-glass, with rather a wistful look; "but I'm growing," he added ...
— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery
... long wall built in rough-hewn courses lifts itself above the squalor of the Moghrebin quarter to an eastern sky from which a sun that seldom sleeps bakes the grey stones, bares every detail of a crumbling ruin, and intensifies the wistful odor of decay. This, the remnant of Solomon's glory, is the Wailing Wall of the Jews. Clad in sackcloth and covered with ashes, patriarchal figures sway to and fro, press their lips to the hot granite, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... He jest couldn't quit thinkin' o' that yaller-headed woman an' her blue eyes an' shiny store shoes. I jest pitied 'im like he was a baby. It went on till he got sick, an' many an' many a day he'd lie thar helpless an' look out towards the cow-lot, wistful like, an' I knowed he was thinkin' o' that pictur'. He was lookin' that way when he drawed his last breath. It may 'a' been jest a notion o' mine, fer some said he was unconscious all that day, but it looked that away to me. I nussed him through his sickness ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... tired, worn man, unfashionably dressed, eager-eyed and wistful. Instead, the tall fellow who came forth was attired in the most modern English garments; he was brown, fresh-faced, keen-eyed and prosperous looking. The same old Harry Green grown stronger, handsomer, more polished. His black eyes were sweeping the ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Miss Aline was delighted and admitted that, though not, of course, so beautiful as Ladykirk, England had its points all the same, and that certainly neither the Abbey Burn nor the Mays Water could be compared to the Thames for size—though, she added, as she observed the patient wistful array of anglers on the bank, that she greatly doubted if any of these fisherfolk would bring back six dozen of trout as Stair Garland often did on ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Yuletide songs fraught with memories of the homeland;—all that is with the exception of Kayak Bill. The old man, his high forehead shining from his recent ablutions, his bushy beard hiding his new tie, sat silent, even wistful, stroking the home-made gifts that lay upon his knees. Jean as she played, wondered what long-ago memories were ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... boat against a rock while Perry lifted in the basket of fish, he saw the wistful faces of the children standing on the beach. Now, the "Cap'n" considered himself a very good-natured man, and good-natured men are always fond of children. So he called out ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... at the head of the State thus hung upon his counsels, and drew encouragement from his indomitable confidence, the people in the streets looked up to him with that wistful and reverent dependence which does not wholly understand, but centres all its trust upon a tried name. They knew what he had done in the now distant past, and they had heard lately that he had been ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... remarkably large heads and faces. I do not think the tallest of them was much, if any, over five feet. Donovan, who was about six feet, looked like a giant beside them. They stood huddled together, looking just a little wistful at being cut off from their fellows, and casting fearful glances at Guard, who stood barking excitedly at them from the companion-way. Though used to dogs, they had very likely never seen a jet-black Newfoundland before. Possibly they mistook ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... Outspread the shining summer land, And all his neighbor's fields were white. Long drawn, beneath the genial skies, He saw deep-fruited vineyards rise; On every hill the bladed corn Flashed like the falchions of the morn Before Ben Hafed's wistful eyes. ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... unbearable, she prays The song-bird cease! So, on the tale I dare, Your "hush!" your wistful "hush!" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had become a little strained, a little edged, before the end. But it never lost its freshness. It was always as shining as fine rain at dawn. And the inquiry in her eyes was not part calculation. They were more wistful, less expectant maybe. But they were steady. And ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... mother's face during the farewell scene; she was seated in an arm chair beside my brother. After the prayer she had upon her face an infinitely sweet, but wistful smile, and an expression of submissive trust; but suddenly an unexpected change came over her features, and in spite of her efforts at self-control her tears flowed. I had never before seen my mother weep, and it ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... smile on her face, and kissed me fondly. Then she said to my father she was so glad he had brought me, and she hoped I would have a happy day. And my father looked at me as he went away with a sort of wistful anxiety that made me again have that horrible feeling of not deserving his care and affection. And oh, how I wished the long day alone with my grandmother were over! I could not bear being in the drawing-room, ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... railroad, and gossip said he could not speak English, she hastened to him, caught dying words from his lips, whispered a reply, and then what seemed to be a prayer, while he held fast her hand, and sank to coma with wistful eyes upon her face. Moreover 'twas she who buried him, raising a cross above his grave, and she who ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... Allan, with wistful look the while, Marked Roderick landing on the isle; His master piteously he eyed. 485 Then gazed upon the Chieftain's pride, Then dashed, with hasty hand, away From his dimmed eye the gathering spray; And Douglas, as his hand he laid On Malcolm's shoulder, kindly said, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... fugue from Bach, and lovely forlorn old English airs, till the music seemed not only a voice persuading, pondering, and lamenting, but gathered about itself the hollow surge of the water and the darkness; wistful and clear, as the thoughts of a solitary child. Ever and again a log burnt through its strength, and falling amid sparks, stirred, like a restless animal, the stillness; or Herbert in his corner lifted his head to glance towards his visitor, and ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... wistful as they followed the quivering shadows of the leaves overhead; and Christie watched her silently ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... was in appearance a tall, dark-haired boy—he was really only a boy—with a singularly beautiful face, and a strange wistful expression of the eyes that I think will haunt me as long as I live. I made him, somewhat externally and feebly, I fear, one of the characters in a recently published novel. That he was a lonely spirit will be plain enough from his writings; he lived among the poverty-haunted ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... maturer married ladies, whose status and character, together with those of their husbands, license them to practice as certificated Egerias. His dangerous penchant was for highly spiced adventuresses, and for pastoral amourettes, wistful and obscure. But he never gave away his heart; he lent it out at interest. He received it again intact, with the profit of his musical inspiration. Thus his liaison with Veronique Gerson produced the publication of Les demi-jours, a series of ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... she tried most, Verena reproached her—so far as Verena's incurable softness could reproach—with not allowing enough. Olive didn't appear to understand that, while Matthias Pardon drew that picture and tried to hold her hand (this image was unfortunate), she had given one long, fixed, wistful look, through the door he opened, at the bright tumult of the world, and then had turned away, solely for her friend's sake, to an austerer probation and a purer effort; solely for her friend's, that is, and that of the whole enslaved sisterhood. The fact remained, at any rate, that Verena ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... It does look very nice," said Fred, gazing on it with wistful eyes, "but really I ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge |
