"Wan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wan' to ketch fish yo' mus' jes' set an' wait— When yo' wan' to ketch fish yo' must spit on yo' bait— When yo' wan' to ketch fish yo' mus' git across de tide, For dey's alw'ys ...
— The Arkansaw Bear - A Tale of Fanciful Adventure • Albert Bigelow Paine
... can't, Mrs. Hawkins." Ann Eliza attempted a wan smile. "You forget there ain't nobody but me ...
— Bunner Sisters • Edith Wharton
... said Bill with a wan smile as he fainted away. His wounds and Claud's wounds were bound with the Colonel's own hand. Then commenced the weary procession through trench after trench to the hospital below. They were but two in a cavalcade of thousands. They passed from the zones of dead into the camp of tears ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... succeeded in getting her apart for a promenade, he poured forth his soul to her in the picturesque English of the quadroon quarter of New Orleans. "An' now, to proof to you my lorv, Ma'm'selle Leelee"—he gesticulated vigorously as he spoke—"I am geeving you wan beau-u-tiful Christmas present—I am goin' to geev you—w'at you t'ink? My borgee!" With this he turned dramatically and faced her. They were standing now under the shed outside the door in the moonlight, and, although they did not see him, Apollo stood within hearing, behind a pile of molasses ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... through the snow wreaths. There is a desolate-looking refuge on the left, with its number 16, marked on it in long ghastly figures, and the wind is drifting the snow off the roof and through its window in a frantic whirl; the near ground is all wan with half-thawed, half-trampled snow; a diligence in front, whose horses, unable to face the wind, have turned right round with fright, its passengers struggling to escape, jammed in the window; a little farther on is another carriage off the road, some figures ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... peculiarly its own. The dark grey houses stand as a perpetual witness of those people that have found life too hard for them and have been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy squares seen beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest against all gaiety of spirit and urge resignation and a mournful acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life on Thirty Shillings a week without the drama of starvation or the tragedy of the Embankment, but with all the ignominy of making ends meet ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... arm was in a sling; his face, thin and wan with suffering, wore an expression of anxiety and alarm which deepened momentarily as the ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... is it that we are to keep?" she asked, with a wan smile. Her kind blue eyes had that glitter in them which is caused by a constant and continuous hunger. Six months ago they had only been gay and kind, now they saw the world as it is, as it always must be so ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... "to call is wan thing, and the chune Mrs. Barry sings is another. Take shame, Carus Renault, ye blatherin', bould inthriguer! L'ave innocence to ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... and calm. In the bewildering change of events we had forgotten the wan figure on the bed still gasping for the breath of life. I could not help wondering at the woman's apparent lack of gratitude, and a thought flashed over my mind. Had the affair come to a contest between various ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... he came to house. Yif he ought spake whanne he felt peyne, Ageyne oon worde alweys he hade tweyne. Sheo qwytt him euer, ther was no thing to seeche, Six for oon, of worde and strookes eeche. Ther was no meen bytweene hem for to goone. What euer he wan : clowting olde shoone The wykday, pleynely this is no tale, Sheo wolde on Sondayes drynk it at the nale. [70] His part was noon, he sayde not oonys nay. Hit is no game, but an hernest play For lack of wit a man his wyf to greeve. Theos housbondemen : who so wolde hem leeve, Koude yif ...
— The Disguising at Hertford • John Lydgate
... girl," pursued Virginia. "I'd have had another father if I could, one who'd 've loved me. Matty says even fathers like their kids sometimes—a little." She paused a minute, a wan, sweet smile passing over her lips. "But I've got Milly Ann and her kittens, and they're soft and ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... around him his 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
... the prophet in deep tones, and as he spoke he slowly raised his body till he sat rigidly erect, and his wan and ancient fingers were stretched out towards the young soldier. "Go forth and do thy part, for thou art in the hand of the Lord, and some things that thou wilt do shall be good, and some things evil. For thou hast departed from the path of crystal that leadeth among the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... 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 ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... uncommon strength of lungs. If you ever meet him, unless you happen to be arrested by his originality, you will either stuff your fingers into your ears or else take to your heels. Heavens, what a monstrous pipe! Nothing is so little like him as himself. One time he is lean and wan, like a patient in the last stage of consumption: you could count his teeth through his cheeks; you would say he must have passed some days without tasting a morsel, or that he is fresh from La Trappe. A month after, he is stout and sleek as if he had been sitting all the time at the board of ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... his keen eyes glued to them and his ragged elbows propped on the Fort parapet, he scanned the distant solitary figure, dropping the words out slowly one by one. "Twice have I seen the fur fly off av' wan av' thim hairy baboons av' Boers since he starrtud, an' supposin' the air a taste thicker, 'tis punched wid bullet-holes we'd be seem' ut all round 'um, the same as a young lady in the sky-in-terrific dhressmakin' line ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... void of Duneland became peopled indeed. The extraordinarily mild day had drawn out hundreds—had given the moribund summer-excursion season a new lease of life. Every stoppage brought so many more young men in soiled khaki, with shapeless packs on their backs, and so many more wan maidens, no longer young, who were trying, in little bands, to capture from Nature the joys thus far denied by domestic life; and at one station a belated squad of the "Lovers of Landscape"—some forty or fifty in all—came flooding in with the day's spoils: masses of asters and goldenrod, with the ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... delight, then break out in a volley of questions, now addressing Malcolm, now Travers. She tried Davy too, but Davy knew nothing except his duty here. The Thames was like an unknown eternity to the creature of the Wan Water— about which, however, he could have ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... enough; and every pressure of that hateful object to her face bound me faster in a dungeon of utter hopelessness. My sweet day-dreams and midnight rhapsodies trooped back to mock at me. I felt that I must bow broken under anguish or else steel myself and shout back cynical derision to the whole wan troop of torturing regrets. And all the time, she was caressing that thing in her hand and looking down at it with a fondness, which I—poor fool—thought that I alone could inspire. I suppose if I could have crept ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... "'Aggh, g'wan, ye bald-headed ol' pepper-mint lozenger!' she hollers. 'D'ye s'pose I niwer see a lookin'-glass? Where's the man'll marry me widout me money? "Me face is me forchune, sor," sez she. "Tek it to the gravel bank an' have it cashed, then," sez he. Where's the man that'll have me, ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the hand maiden walked with the gait of a gazelle in flight, fit to damn a devotee, till she came to a chair whereon she seated herself. And Al-Maamun marvelled at her beauty and loveliness; but, when Abu Isa saw her, his heart throbbed with pain, his colour changed to pale and wan and he was in evil case. Asked the Caliph, "O Abu Isa, what aileth thee to change thus?"; and he answered, "O Commander of the Faithful, it is because of a twitch that seizeth me betimes." Quoth the Caliph, "Hast thou known yonder damsel ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... not meddling. See that hollow— I knew it once all heath, and deep peat-bog— I drowned a black mare in that self-same spot Hunting with your good father: Well, he gave One jovial night, to six poor Erfurt monks— Six picked-visaged, wan, bird-fingered wights— All in their rough hair shirts, like hedgehogs starved— I told them, six weeks' work would break their hearts: They answered, Christ would help, and Christ's great mother, And make them strong when weakest: So they settled: ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... I know thee, now thou nam'st thy son: Thou art the lively image of my grief; Within thy face my sorrows I may see: Thy eyes are gumm'd with tears, thy cheeks are wan, Thy forehead troubled, and thy muttering lips Murmur sad words abruptly broken off; By force of windy sighs thy spirit breathes; And all this sorrow riseth for thy son. And selfsame sorrow feel I for my son. Come in, old man, thou shalt to Isabel; Lean ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Know, then, that Trenck is imprisoned because I love him! Yes, general, I love him! Why do you not laugh, sir? Is it not laughable to hear an old, wrinkled, broken-down creature speak of love—to see a wan, trembling form, tottering to her grave on a prop of love? Look at this horribly disfigured countenance. Listen to the rough, discordant voice that dares to speak of love, and then laugh, general, for I tell you I love Trenck. I love him with all the strength and passion of a young girl. ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... ye," she said, "but I mus' git troo, and go home. There's a spindlin' lad named Dick nex' door but wan to where I live, that can walk only wid a crutch an' not able to do that lately. He'd be cheered entoirely wid your ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... old wan worn look settling upon his face, but was either too indolent or too hopeless of being able to sustain a protracted and successful warfare with Ellen to extend the sympathy and make the inquiries which I suppose I ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... interminably shunning discomfort and by indulging tepid preferences. For I, and none but I, can waken that desire which uses all of a man, and so wastes nothing, even though it leave that favored man forever after like wan ashes in the sunlight. And with you I have no more concern, for it is I that am leaving you forever. Join with your graying fellows, then! and help them to affront the clean sane sunlight, by making guilds and laws ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... body had appeared to grow wan and slender, her soul, long stifled, had found nourishment and had expanded. Under a sympathy emanating gently from Sothern she grew calm and spoke with him as she had not known she could speak. She was not ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... track. He told himself that he was not bound to believe Da Souza's story, that he had left Monty with the honest conviction that he was past all human help. Yet he knew that such consolation was the merest sophistry. Through the twilight, as he passed to and fro, he fancied more than once that the wan face of an old man, with wistful, sorrowing eyes, was floating somewhere before him—and he stopped to listen with bated breath to the wind rustling in the elm-trees, fancying he could bear that same passionate cry ringing still in his ears—the cry of an old man parted ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... dress was torn—for dregs of ale And slops of gin had rusted it; His pimpled face was wan and pale, Where filth ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... 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 tired heart ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the product of a dozen forcing processes—and I will love you a new way. As the flowers say good-by, I will say goodnight. Shall I burn them? No, for they would smoulder. And if I left them here alone, to-morrow they would be wan. There! I have thrown them out wide into that gulf of a street twelve stories below. They will flutter down in the smoky darkness, and fall, like a message from the land of the lotus-eaters, upon a prosy wayfarer. And safe in my heart there lives that gracious picture of ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... cowslips (as erst his heather), That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms; And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)— Our fingers at ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... seen Gordon—Gordon very white and listless, leaning against the side of a doorway, smoking, and looking into the ballroom. Edith could see that his face was thin and wan—that the hand he raised to his lips with a cigarette, was trembling. They were dancing quite close to ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Wan, ghastly looking men were groaning upon the bottom of carts destitute of springs. Others, hardly able to lift their feet, were staggering along for some city where they could receive the attentions of a physician, being ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... of Saint Giles of Holy Thorn, a broad and fair foundation, one of the two set up in the forest by the Countess Isabel, Dowager of March and Bellesme, Countess of Hauterive and Lady of Morgraunt in her own right. Where the Wan river makes a great loop, running east for three miles, and west again for as many before it drives its final surge towards the Southern Sea, there stands Holy Thorn, Church and Convent, watching over the red roofs of Malbank hamlet ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... deftly, with upturn'd Fingers shap'd them anew; then thumbs earth-pointed in even Balance twisted a spindle on orb'd wheels smoothly rotating. So clear'd softly between and tooth-nipt even it ever 315 Onward moved; still clung on wan lips, sodden as ashes, Shreds all woolly from out that soft smooth surface arisen. Lastly before their feet lay fells, white, fleecy, refulgent, Warily guarded they in baskets woven of osier. They, as on each light tuft their voice smote louder approaching, 320 Pour'd grave inspiration, a prophet ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... I spoke, the fresh tears trembled on her lids, like dew upon the petals of some woodland flower, but a smile, as bright as the sun-ray that dispels the dew-drop broke over her wan and wasted countenance, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... badly frightened. His wan, pinched face was ashen and he shivered wretchedly. Yet he strove to play the man, and his pitiful attempt at self-control roused something tender and protective in his captor. Laying a reassuring hand upon his shoulder, Blake ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... carry over the whole world the tidings that my John is going to live! Of course there were a few very dreadful days, and some nights that were agony, and that nice little doctor lost his red cheeks and looked pale and wan, and of course I was very, very tired. That dear Mrs. Barnett or her husband were always with me, and no one could ever make Frenchy leave the place for a minute, and old Sammy hovered around constantly. The people walked about the tiny village as if it had ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... her fairies vanish in a mist, Floating away in music, while she stood Alone, far down the mountain opposite The side that with such toil she just had climbed. She stood alone—and where? the roses shrank From her wan cheeks to view her new distress,— Before her a dark chasm, and above her A crowd of close and overhanging rocks, All dripping, black, and hopelessly down-leant. A glimmering hope now broke upon her sense— Seeing an arch, and, far beyond, ...
— The Arctic Queen • Unknown
... ribbon sure 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 ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... dresh, Cordalia," said her mother. "It'll soon be wore out, an' ye'll git no other, wid your father oidle, an' no wan airnin' a pinny but you an' Johnny an' Sarah ...
— Different Girls • Various
... red-hot iron on her palm, it would scarcely have been more scorching than the touch of his gold, and only the vision of a wan and woeful face in that far off cheerless attic room, restrained her impulse to throw ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... was no mistaking the kindliness in his eyes, or the look of rather wan beseeching in his thin, pinched face. In his golfing suit of Harris tweed he was not an unattractive figure, even ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... a hundred shrines Glittering at the great Shwe's base Falls the sound of his feet mid lines Droned from the sacred Wisdom. Round and round where the idols gaze So pitiless on his pained distress He passes on, Pale-eyed and wan— A pariah like ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... her thoughts turned to that scene in the Dalton vaults. The dead seemed all around. Amidst the darkness she saw the ghost of her ancestors. They frowned menacingly upon her, as on one who was bringing dishonor upon a noble name. They pointed at her scornfully with their wan fingers. Deep moans showed the horror of her soul, but amidst these moans she protested ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... he passed the plains, the place of the sleepless winds where wan white skies bent above the grass of the hot dry pulse, the lifeless grass that wailed into the ceaseless wind its dirge of ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... little sisters were sitting up in their beds, each in her wrapper, being fed by turns with delicately-buttered slices, Mary standing between like a mother-bird feeding her young, and pleased to find the eyes grow brighter and less hollow, the cheeks less wan, the voices less thin and pipy, and a little laugh breaking out when she ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... principle, yet such in practice.[21] What do all their acts declare, but this, that they either know not God, or fear not what he can do unto them? But, O! how will they change their note, when they see what will become of them! How wan will they look! Yea, the hair of their heads will stand on end for fear; for their fear is their portion; nor can their fears, nor their prayers, nor their entreaties, nor their wishes, nor their repentings, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... extensively with remains of the Yueeh-chih; the others, the Ch'iang, were northern Tibetans or so-called Tanguts; that is to say, they contained Turkish and Mongol elements. In A.D. 296 there began a great rising of the Ti, whose leader Ch'i Wan-nien took on the title emperor. The Ch'iang rose with them, but it was not until later, from 312, that they pursued an independent policy. The Ti State, however, though it had a second emperor, very soon lost importance, so that we shall be ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... of Guanajuato, capital of the state bearing the same name,—pronounced Wan-a-wato,—is situated nearly a thousand feet higher than Silao, two hundred and fifty miles north of the city of Mexico, and fifteen miles from the main trunk of the Mexican Central Railroad, with which it is connected by a branch road. It contains between fifty ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... to the aged when near their grave, Pierrette's whole life, on which her mind had dwelt throughout her journey. She divined the illness of her darling, and knew that she was threatened with death. Two big tears painfully rose in her wan gray eyes, from which her troubles had worn both lashes and eyebrows, two pearls of anguish, forming within them and giving them a dreadful brightness; then each tear swelled and rolled down the withered cheek, but did ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... damp night air, enhanced its dead whiteness, and all its life and sparkle seemed to be torpid. Yet her eyes glittered with preternatural brightness in spite of the violet shadows under the lashes upon her wan cheeks. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... what it means to see the dawn! The dawn, that comes each day! What if the East should ne'er grow wan, Should never more grow gray! That line of rose no more be ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... he laid in a stock whenever he had the chance. So now he entered the shop, leaving Phineas and Mo outside. As they looked on French cigarettes with sturdy British contempt, they were not interested in Doggie's purchases. A wan girl of thirteen rose ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... stores at Guisnes and Calais, which would have to be made good. The campaign which Philip proposed could not cost less than a further L170,000; and so much money could not be had "without the people should have strange impositions set upon them, which they could not bear." There was but "a wan hope of recovering Calais," and "inconveniences might follow" if the attempt ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... she died that autumn. She used often to sigh, and say, with a wan little laugh, 'There is one thing I am glad of, Margaret: your father knows now all about the little room.' I think she was afraid I distrusted her. Of course, in a child's way, I thought there was something queer about it, but I did not brood over it. I was too young then, and took it as a part ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the cottage, Montanus ran before, and went in and told Phoebe that Ganymede was at the door. This word "Ganymede," sounding in the ears of Phoebe, drave her into such an ecstasy for joy, that rising up in her bed, she was half revived, and her wan color began to wax red; and with that came Ganymede in, who saluted Phoebe with such a courteous look, that it was half a salve to her sorrows. Sitting him down by her bedside, he questioned about her disease, and where the pain chiefly held her? Phoebe ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... out his 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 submitted her disposition ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... brilliancy and size of her eyes were exaggerated. One arm, clumsy and inanimate in splints, was extended over the cotton spread; but with the other hand she was feverishly busy with her appearance. She smiled, a wan tremulous movement that again shut the pain like a ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... it, on a naked hill, was Uncle Sam's military village,—a fort by courtesy,—where, when not sleeping, black soldiers and white strolled about in the warm sun. When the little street was fairly awake, it presented a very lively appearance and had the air of doing a great deal of business. The wan houses emitted their occupants, and numerous pink-faced riders, in leathers and broad hats, poured in from all sides, and, tying their heavily-accoutred ponies, disappeared into the shops with a sort of bow-legged waddle, like sailors ashore. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... has been a stormy, a cold, a boisterous and inclement day. The winds have been harsh, the skies have been severe; and if we had no houses over our heads; if we had no shelter against this howling and freezing tempest; if we were wan and worn out; if half of us were sick and tired, and ready to descend into the grave; if we were on the bleak coast of Plymouth, houseless, homeless, with nothing over our heads but the Heavens, and that God who sits above the Heavens; if we ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... hears at dawn The far reveille die; Again he marches stern and wan Beneath a burning sky: He bivouacs; the night comes on; His comrades 'round him lie— O memories of the years long gone! O years that ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... from the sky, but the sun did not shine forth brightly. It remained wan and cold, like a moon behind ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... requested the visitor to enter, and Mr. Fairman himself walked slowly in. He was pale and care-worn and he looked, as I imagined, sternly upon me. "All is known!" was my first thought, and my throat swelled with agitation. I presented a chair to the incumbent; and when he sat down and turned his wan face upon me, I felt that my own cheek was no less blanched than his. I awaited his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... 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 ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... the groves when Evelyn stirred, and began to speak. I arose to my feet; she still lay with one side of her face upon the nurse's bosom—that side, when she stirred her head a little, was warm and flushed; the other cheek was pale and wan. ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... 'The wan will come on to bring the boxes,' said Mrs Jarley, and you had better come in it, child. I am obliged to walk, very much against my will; but the people expect it of me, and public characters can't be their own masters and mistresses in such ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... Though wan with grief and anxiety, this Queen was beautiful. Her eyes, like mournful lakes of darkness, were lovely in the pale ivory of her face. Her lips were nobly cut and calm, and by the favour of the Guardian Nats, she was shaped with grace and health, a worthy mother of kings. Also ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... a wan and wasted woman pressing through the crowd. She seems to have a very urgent errand. I can see from her countenance that she has been a great sufferer. She comes close enough to put her finger on the hem of Christ's garment, and the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... wan, and moved very slowly as though with haughty gesture. Mr. Moss, no doubt, had reason for knowing that the marriage with Lord Castlewell was at an end. The story had been told about among the theatres. ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... of energy, Laura tore her Minerva from top to bottom, while two great tears rolled down the cheeks grown wan with hope deferred. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... the glow of dawn, and again Galatea was before him, meeting him at the door with her bowl of fruit. She deposited her burden, giving him a wan little smile of greeting, and stood facing him ...
— Pygmalion's Spectacles • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... my friend? methinks you look not well; Your eyes are sunk, your cheeks look pale and wan: What ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Kate smiled a wan and flickering smile of dissent; but to say more she felt would be fruitless. A heavy burden was laid upon her young life. She knew the iron will that slumbered beneath her father's kind exterior; but she felt in her soul ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... well fitted to contend with the cross-currents of the China Sea. As the only lady passenger I had very comfortable quarters, and the kindest attention from French officers and Annamese stewards. The second afternoon there came a welcome diversion when the boat put into Kwang-chou-wan, two hundred miles southwest of Hong Kong, to visit the new free port of Fort Bayard, the commercial and military station which the French are creating in the cession they secured from China in 1898, and which, if all goes well, is some day to rival Hong Kong. The Bay of Kwang-chou is very ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... baby on her breast. The hand of the woman was stretched out with a coin which she was about dropping into an iron-bound coffer which stood at the side of the picture. It was "the widow's mite;" and her face, wan, sad, sweet, yet loving and longing, told the story. The two coins were going into the box with ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... quietly after he went away and smiled, a little, wan smile, which made her pallor the more pitiful. It was all so romantic and wonderful—this big man's coming. He was so unspoiled and so direct of manner. She had the hope he would come again, and it seemed not impossible that he might help her, his voice was so stirring ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... poorty ole and gittn' a little too near de grabe to tell a lie, but de fac am, I bin livin' round in dese parts nigh onto a hundred years and knowed a heap of de big mens dat's dead and gone, and I neber yet knowed nor hear tell of no man bein' 'lected, what wan't ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... Laertes, and the rest of the dismal people at Elsinore, could have seen him now, they would not have known him. Where were his wan looks and biting speeches? His eyes were no longer filled with mournful speculation. He went in glad apparel, and took the sunshine as his natural inheritance. If he ever fell into moodiness—it was partly constitutional with him—the shadow ...
— A Midnight Fantasy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... has done so," said Isabel, who had listened to all this with a face more and more wan. "She betrayed herself to me the other day, though I didn't recognise her. There appeared to have been a chance of Pansy's making a great marriage, and in her disappointment at its not coming off she ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... kinds, and various warm cakes and pastries, compromised down to plans of tender steak, mashed potatoes, cream biscuit, lemon custard, and coffee. It wus settled in peace and calmness. He looked unstrung, very unstrung, and wan, considerable wan. But I knew that I and the supper could string him up agin; and I felt that I would not speak of the plan or the creek, or any agitatin' subject, until the supper was over, which resolve I follered. After the table was cleared, and Josiah looked like a ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... found her king and lord On the heap that his glaive had fashioned: not yet was his spirit past, Though his hurts were many and grievous, and his life-blood ebbing fast; And glad were his eyes and open as her wan face over him hung, And he spake: "Thou art sick with sorrow, and I would thou wert not so young; Yet as my days passed shall thine pass; and a short while now it seems Since my hand first gripped the sword-hilt, and my glory was but ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told, from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... her present intention to arouse the wan stranger, who slept as one dead. So gentle was her breathing that the watcher stared in some fear at the fair, smooth breast that seemed scarcely to rise and fall. For a long time she stood beside the bed, looking down at the face of the sleeper, ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... the wan, childish faces, then drew out her slender portmonnaie. "The Lord will provide," she thought, as the time-worn "Charity begins at home," rose to her lips, at sight of her scant supply of means. "Come here, dears," ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... finished the measures, and some few other daunces, the said page waved them forth with his wan, and spake ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... had paused was as little restful to the eye as are most of those discoverable in the byways of London. The small trees that grew about it shivered in their leaflessness; the rank grass was wan under the failing day; most of the stones leaned this way or that, emblems of neglect (they were very white at the top, and darkened downwards till the damp soil made them black), and certain cats and dogs were prowling or sporting among the graves. At this corner the east wind blew with malice ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... his crest the wings Erect seemed shaking upwards, and to sag The spear's point, and the burden'd head to wag Before the stricken body felt the stroke, Or the strong knees grew lax, or the heart broke. Breathless they waited; then the failing man Stiffened anew his neck, and changed and wan Looked for the last time in the face of day, And seemed to dare the Gods such might to slay As this, the sanguine splendid thing he was, Withal now gray of face and pinched. Alas, For pride of life! Now he had heard his knell. His spirit ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... landing-place where they had left their goods last night; and there he found some half-dozen men—wan and forlorn to look at, but ready enough to assist—who helped him to carry them to the log-house. They shook their heads in speaking of the settlement, and had no comfort to give him. Those who had the means of going away had all deserted ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... didn't go for to do it." As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother's care. The child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... regiment came back all the guns and swords were black And the uniforms had faded out to gray, And the faces of the men who marched through that street again Seemed like faces of the dead who lose their way. For the dead who lose their way cannot look more wan and gray. Oh the sorrow and the pity of the sight, Oh the weary lagging feet out of step with drums that beat, As the regiment comes marching from ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... candlestick and dropped on one knee beside the fresh horror, while the light from the bull's-eye was again brought to bear, and mingled with the wan, yellow rays that struggled in through ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... appeared he thought she looked tired. She had put on the low-necked and tightly-laced dinner-dress which the Mingott ceremonial exacted on the most informal occasions, and had built her fair hair into its usual accumulated coils; and her face, in contrast, was wan and almost faded. But she shone on him with her usual tenderness, and her eyes had kept the blue dazzle of ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... at the door and watched them go down the Strand, the professor, flamboyant, walking erect with flying coat-tails, and his big cigar held firmly between his teeth; Beatrice, a wan figure in her black clothes, clinging to his arm. Tavernake watched them until they disappeared, conscious of a curious excitement, a strange pain, a sense of revelation. When at last they were out of ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... he, giving the hand a friendly shake, "it's somethin' you're wantin', sure. What a pity it is wan can't spake wid ...
— Under the Waves - Diving in Deep Waters • R M Ballantyne
... bald little man at me right? That's Cornel Escott, C.B., retired. He takes a sea-bath every morning, to live up to the letters; and faith, it's an act of heroism, no less, in weather the like of this. Three weeks have I been here, and but wan day of sunshine, and the mercury never above fifty. The other fellow, him at me left, is what you'd be slow to suspect by the look of him, I'll go bail; and that's a bar'net, Sir Richard Maistre, with a place in Hampshire, and ten thousand a year if he's ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... street tax. Every day when I sit down in my dining-room—my dining-room! I find the wish growing stronger that each poor soul in Baltimore, whether saint or sinner, could come and dine with me. How I would carve out the merry-thoughts for the old hags! How I would stuff the big wan-eyed rascals till their rags ripped again! There was a knight of old times who built the dining-hall of his castle across the highway, so that every wayfarer must perforce pass through; there the traveler, rich or poor, found always a trencher ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... on de winder An' kip jus' so quiet lak wan leetle mouse, She say de more finer moon never was shiner— Very fonny, for moon isn't dat side ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond
... charming geisha. Like the rolling of a waterfall continually reverberates the multitudinous pattering of geta upon the bridge. A new light rises in the east; the moon is wheeling up from behind the peaks, very large and weird and wan through the white vapours. Again I hear the sounds of the clapping of many hands. For the wayfarers are paying obeisance to O-Tsuki-San: from the long bridge they are saluting the coming of ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... had little by little dispersed. It was about midnight when we left. The stars were still buried in mist; the moon which was almost at the edge of the horizon, lit up the night with a sort of wan daylight. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... the life of our party, and I have never appreciated the young man so well. His originality of perception makes his conversation both lively and in- teresting, and as he talks, his wan and suffering countenance lights up with an intelligent animation. His father seems to become more devoted to him than ever, and I have seen him sit for an hour at a time, with his hand resting on his son's, listening eagerly to his ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... superior of the convent, was a tall woman, of about forty years, dressed in dark gray serge, with a long rosary hanging at her girdle. A white mob-cap, with a long black veil, surrounded her thin, wan face with its narrow, hooded border. A great number of deep, transverse wrinkles ploughed her brow, which resembled yellowish ivory in color and substance. Her keen and prominent nose was curved like the hooked beak of a bird of prey; her black eye was piercing and sagacious; her face ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the iron of his harness. "I don't know much about fountains," said he, "but I know a good deal about men, and I never seed one with a black heart that ever had it washed out clean. I never knowd a scoundrel that wan't allus a scoundrel, and the Book don't say that the Savior died for scoundrels—died for sinners. A sinner kin be a fust-rate feller, full o' that weakness that helps a wretch outen trouble. The Savior knowed that ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... to him, putting one wan finger on his trembling lips in protest. She did not speak, but he read the thrilling simplicity of her silence completely. "Love is never too late!" was ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... had met together. Truth and Genius had embraced under the eye and with the sanction of Religion. This was even beyond my hopes. I returned home well satisfied. The sun that was still labouring pale and wan through the sky, obscured by thick mists, seemed an emblem of the 'good cause'; and the cold dank drops of dew, that hung half melted on the beard of the thistle, had something genial and refreshing ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... ugly, certainly these three ladies might put in a valid claim to that epithet. Their complexions were dark and withered, and their eyes, though bright, were bloodshot. Scantily clothed in black garments, not unstained with gore, their wan and offensive forms were but slightly veiled. Their hands were talons; their feet cloven; and serpents were wreathed round their brows instead of hair. Their restless and agitated carriage afforded also not less striking contrast ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... turn pale, pale. deprive of color, decolorize, bleach, tarnish, achromatize, blanch, etiolate, wash out, tone down. Adj. uncolored &c (color) &c 428; colorless, achromatic, aplanatic^; etiolate, etiolated; hueless^, pale, pallid; palefaced^, tallow-faced; faint, dull, cold, muddy, leaden, dun, wan, sallow, dead, dingy, ashy, ashen, ghastly, cadaverous, glassy, lackluster; discolored &c v.. light-colored, fair, blond; white &c 430. pale as death, pale as ashes, pale as a witch, pale as a ghost, pale as a ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... of pain, on beds of woe, Where stricken heroes languish, Wan faces smile and sick hearts grow Triumphant over anguish; While souls that starve in lonely gloom Flush green with odorous praises, And all the lowly pallets ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hues are dim, than when they are blazoned with crimson and pale gold; and assuredly, in the blue of the rainy sky, in the many tints of morning flowers, in the sunlight on summer foliage and field, there are more sources of mere sensual color-pleasure than in the single streak of wan and dying light. It is not then by nobler form, it is not by positiveness of hue, it is not by intensity of light, (for the sun itself at noonday is effectless upon the feelings,) that this strange distant space possesses ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... Kennels, which, for weeks, prevented the Master from seeking any further to better his fortunes. At the end of a month, in which the Master and Finn plumbed unsuspected deeps of misery, the Mistress, white and wan, and desperately shaky, left her bedroom for the tiny sitting-room which Finn could almost span when he stretched his mighty frame. (He measured seven feet six and a quarter inches now, from nose-tip to tail-tip; and when ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... Mr. Lincoln, unattended, with bowed head and tears rolling down his furrowed cheeks, his face pale and wan, his breast heaving with emotion, passed through the room. He almost fell as he stepped into the street. We sprang involuntarily from our seats to render assistance, but ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... wrought, sair Mary grat, She scarce could lift the ladle; Wi' pithless feet, 'tween ilka greet, She 'd rock the borrow'd cradle. Her weddin' plenishin' was gane, She never thocht to borrow: Her bonnie face was waxin' wan— And Will wrought ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various |
