"Would-be" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prepared for the shot, sprang forward upon the instant, with Jean but a step behind him. Through the crowd they were forced to fight their way, but eventually they came to the edge of it, only to find that Duval, for such they were sure the would-be assassin was, had fought his way out ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... enough money to appear in a respectable suit of clothes, who will buy a dinner in some cheap eating-house for sixpence, and then pick their teeth on the door-steps of the Astor House, to make people think they have dined there. And that is not any worse than some would-be genteel people manage when the warm season comes on, every year. They close their front window blinds, and steal into and out of their houses like thieves, or dogs that have just had a flogging, so that their neighbors will think they have gone to Saratoga, or Rockaway, or some other ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... frustrated—for Pausanias, visiting Cleonice earlier than his wont, had already resought his galley—the men retreated as they came, unseen, not unheard. I caught their receding steps through the brushwood. Greeks, I have said. Who is my accuser? in him behold the would-be murderer of Pausanias!" ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... lighted up the face of the would-be boilermaker, as he stretched out the short sleeve of his thread- bare canvas jacket, and replied, pointing her out, 'On ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... condoned the ugliness of his person in the eyes of the singer, and the lavish income he placed at her disposal gratified her boundless extravagances, while it did not prevent her from being gracious to the Infante's many rivals and would-be successors. Bitter quarrels and recriminations ensued, and the jealous ravings of Catarina's princely admirer were more than matched by the fierce sarcasms and shrill clamor of the beautiful virago. One day Don Ferdinand, justly suspecting ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... over again that we had been Treasure Seekers, and we had been Would-be-Goods, and he thought it was time we were ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... Peter T. called "the limit, and a chip or two over." The other would-be gunners and fishermen were satisfied to slam shot after sandpeeps, or hook a stray sculpin or a hake. But t'wa'n't so with brother James Todd and sister Clarissa. "Ducks" it was in the advertising, and nothing BUT ducks they wanted. Clarissa, ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... followed his example. With their own arms and ammunition the advance of the blood-thirsty enemy was again checked. With the newly acquired arms and ammunition the brave little band inflicted a decided injury to their would-be slayers. Now every shot was expended with ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... seems to me as provincial as the rest of Petrograd. The town and its people disappoint me greatly. The Hotel Astoria is a would-be fashionable place, and there is a queer crowd of people listening to the band and eating, as surely only in Russia they can eat. It is all wrong in war-time, and I hate being one of ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... became engaged to a fair maid whose acquaintance he formed on a transatlantic voyage last year. The girl's father consented to their union and while joining their hands he said to the would-be bridegroom, "Follin, love and esteem her."—"Of course, I will," was the reply. "Didn't I fall in ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... the first time two pictures signed by Dore appeared on the walls of the Salon. But the canvases passed unnoticed. The Parisians would not take the would-be painter seriously, and the following year's experience proved hardly less disheartening. Of four pictures sent in, three were accepted, one of these being a historic subject, the other two being landscapes. The first, "La Bataille ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... petrified, and Frederick's life would doubtless have been lost—for he was weak after his many joustings—had not he who had asked to fight last of all galloped forward instantly on marking the drawn weapon and driven his lance into the body of the would-be murderer! ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... I, let me beg you to permit me to go. I am waited for in the town, to dinner. No, replied she, I can't spare you; and whomsoever you are to go to, will excuse you, when they are told 'tis I that command you not to go;—and you may excuse it too, young Lady Would-be, if you consider, that it is the unexpected coming of your late lady's daughter, and your master's sister, that ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... us if the captain chanced to come down to inquire. The next man to us had a barney with the man above him about the same thing. Then the peel was scattered round pretty fairly, or thrown into an empty bunk, and no man dared growl lest he should come to be regarded as a blackleg—a would-be informer. ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... the Chief of Engineers at Washington, but Loring addressed it direct to the home of the assistant, upon whose interest in the case he had reason to rely, and then returned at once to his desk. Were he not to be there it would place it in the power of a would-be oppressor to say the officer designated to receive the property had called during office hours and could not find Mr. Loring. And then, with such patience as he could command, Loring received the visitors who kept dropping in, among them the boisterous Moreland, whose Bay of Biscay ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... photoplay writing and have also seen on the screen many examples of how different effects have been procured in the past. It is not out of place to say now what is enlarged upon in a chapter to follow: The screen is, after all, the greatest of all schools for the would-be professional photoplaywright. ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... frightened, the girl waited for the Arab's reply. He would laugh at this preposterous story; of that she was sure. In an instant he would unmask the deception that M. Frecoult was attempting to practice upon him, and they would both be lost. She tried to plan how best she might aid her would-be rescuer in the fight which must most certainly follow within a moment ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... will certainly be referred to with wonder and shame, whenever civilization shall become a reality, and law cease to be a tool of injustice and monopoly." She paused a moment; then said a little doggedly, as one used to encounter prejudice, "I am a medical student; a would-be doctor." ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... lips—"and, Jonas," she stepped forward, and he backed—his glassy eyes on her face, "and, Jonas," she said, "look here, I have this stone. With the like of this you sought to kill me in the moor." She raised it above her head, "you would-be murderer of your wife and your child—I am free from you." She took another step forward—he reeled back and vanished—disappeared instantly from her sight with a scream—instantly and absolutely, as when the earth opened its mouth at the word of Moses and swallowed ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... think the character of the audience in London is such that one could have the least pleasure in pleasing them.... On the whole, I would far rather write verses for mine honest friend Punch and his audience";[126] and to a would-be tragedian he said: "In the present day there is only one reason which seems to me adequate for the encountering the plague of trying to please a set of conceited performers and a very motley audience,—I mean the want of money."[127] This degraded condition of the London stage Scott thought ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... absolute's own ways of thinking. I do not therefore take Hegel's technical apparatus seriously at all. I regard him rather as one of those numerous original seers who can never learn how to articulate. His would-be coercive logic counts for nothing in my eyes; but that does not in the least impugn the philosophic importance of his conception of the absolute, if we take it merely hypothetically as one of the great ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... War of Secession; the throne of Greece put up to auction; Poland in chains, defying the Russian Bear; the ghost of Charles I. warning the King of Prussia, by the block to which he points, of the punishment that awaits the would-be despot; Napoleon crushing the prostrate figure of France; the wars between "father-in-law Denmark," Germany, and Austria, and between the latter two (as Robbers in the Wood); Reform; Irish Church Disestablishment; "Dizzy" as the Premier-Peri ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... hurry. That man is dead," pointing to his would-be executioner, "but plenty more in the forest." He seized the dah as a weapon for himself, and all four hurried after the ponies, who had come to a stand fifty yards farther ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... conspirators were sentenced to die, among them Santander, but Bolvar changed the penalty to banishment from the country. Santander always contended that the sentence of death had been unjust. The worst punishment that might have fallen upon the would-be-murderers was the unanimous condemnation ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... humble display of histrionic art, generally contrived to commit some egregious blunder. He was remonstrated with, on his choice, by one of the performers, who demonstrated the excessive dulness of apprehension of the would-be Minister of State; and, like other and recent instances in that capacity, his singular aptitude to error, however simple the part he had to enact, or clear and concise the instructions with which it might be accompanied. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... casting his lot with theirs, and he was profoundly grateful to them for having accepted him as one of themselves. But for their generosity, his weighted body would have been already lying at the bottom of the canal, and he was not just now inclined to criticise the mental gifts of those would-be conspirators who had so unexpectedly forgiven him ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... Overconfident. The Cost to the North. McClellan Sacrificed. General Pope and His Methods. He "Finds" Jackson at Cedar Mountain. A Glance Trans-Allegheny. Well-Conceived Federal Programme. General Bragg's Unpopularity. To the Ohio and Back. Would-be Critics. Flashes ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... everywhere, opening ice cream tubs for Moya in the background, guiding would-be players to the tennis court and the croquet ground, and directing new arrivals where to tie their horses and park their motors. Every member of the club was provided with a small notebook wherein to jot down any bit of advice that ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... manners has put an end to this unparalleled assemblage, to this first of metropolitan pleasures, though of itself it was worth any sacrifice. The dinner hour of four and five, among the great, or would-be great, having shifted to the unhealthy hours of eight or nine, the promenade after dinner, in the dinner full-dress, is consequently lost. The present walk in the Green-Park does not possess therefore the attractions of high rank; while the morning assemblages in Hyde-Park ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... a word to me from the Princess, nor any of my old friends: I keep up our intimacy in my own mind; for I will not part with the idea of seeing Florence again. Whenever I am displeased here, the thoughts of that journey are my resource; just as cross would-be devout people, when they have quarrelled with this world, begin packing up ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... not trouble me much. I felt that the worst harm I had done was to hurt the pride of my would-be benefactors. This might be pardonable, but, as regarded my fiancee, what should I do? There seemed to me only one way to act that was honourable. I would ask that I might be given the privilege of seeing her for the last time and ask her forgiveness. If this was refused, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... have seen what happened now! The would-be Anna was immediately transformed, her face grew green and yellow like gall, and she burst with rage; at the next moment a black rabbit jumped over the bilberry bushes ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... 'faithful' were scattered out of earshot, the Doctor felt that the opportunity was too good to be missed, and so (while Mme. Verdurin was adding a final word of commendation of Vinteuil's sonata) like a would-be swimmer who jumps into the water, so as to learn, but chooses a moment when there are not too many people looking on: "Yes, indeed; he's what they call a musician di primo cartello!" he exclaimed, ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... kicking the contents apart in the search for opium. Bags of rice were cut open and the grain spilled upon the ground, to the delight of the white diggers, especially when a tin of opium was found, and the would-be smuggler had his pigtail tied to that of another until there were several groups of a dozen so secured to be driven to the roughly constructed jail and court-house, where justice was administered in an exceedingly ...
— Tom Gerrard - 1904 • Louis Becke
... seems the earthly ball! The pigmy race below I scarce can see; How does my art, the noblest art of all, Bear me close up to heaven's bright canopy!" So cries the slater from his tower's high top, And so the little would-be mighty man, Hans Metaphysicus, from out his critic-shop. Explain, thou little would-be mighty man! The tower from which thy looks the world survey, Whereof,—whereon is it erected, pray? How didst thou mount it? Of what use to thee Its naked ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... collection of old bachelors, especially those who have estates, and but a moderate degree of understanding. For, an old wealthy bachelor, being perpetually surrounded with a set of flatterers, cousins, poor dependents, and would-be heirs, who for their own views submit to his perverseness and caprice, becomes insensibly infected with this scolding malady, which generally proves incurable, and renders him disagreeable to his friends, and a fit subject for ridicule ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... classic writers, and added a daring measure of reckless originality. As Brann read his Homer and his Carlyle, his Shakespeare and his Ingersoll, so Hubbard and O. Henry read their Brann; and Hubbard specifically commends him to the would-be writer as ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... entered. The expression of utter despair and deep weariness which had rested on her pale face changed to a look of terror; then she saw that it was not her would-be murderer who was entering, but those who came to rescue. A bright flush illumined her cheeks and her eyes gleamed. But the change was too sudden for her tortured soul. She rose from her chair, then ...
— The Case of The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow • Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner
... fully realize how hard they have always tried to do right, are the unhappiest people in the world—unless I except Tom, Dick, Harry and Fan, the victims of these self-righteous reformers. No, I can't even except these; for they at least generally succeed in having their own way in spite of the would-be reformer. But what so utterly disheartening as continued lack of success? And the self-righteous one never succeeds. It is hard, hard, to be so wise and willing, with such high ideals (the self-righteous one in strong on ideals), and ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... that my anxiety was not that I get too much fertilizer in the soil, but that I would take so much out of the bag that it would be missed. Great indeed was my chagrin and disappointment, twelve hours after carefully setting out and watering my would-be prize plants, to notice that they had perceptibly turned yellow and wilted. And I certainly had made ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... He eyed the would-be recruit with no very favourable expression on his face, as he prepared to take down the answers to the questions on ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... completely. The confident would-be conqueror was reduced to trembling and whining now. "M-maybe he's hungry. Oh, God, maybe he's ...
— A World Called Crimson • Darius John Granger
... but also with regard to the human race. In his famous article on "The Method and Results of Ethnology," Professor Huxley made this declaration:—"There are those who represent the most numerous, respectable, and would-be orthodox of the public, and who may be called 'Adamites,' pure and simple. They believe that Adam was made out of earth somewhere in Asia, about six thousand years ago; that Eve was modelled from one of his ribs; and that the progeny of these two having been reduced to the eight ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... conjugal vow in loving him, but whose love he is not rich enough to buy—even were that love for sale—oh, then, everyone must point at him the finger of scorn! As for myself, it seems that it was useless for me to resist so many would-be lovers in order to open my door more freely to the man of my choice—an action which no one holds against me, however, because I am only an actress, and the public classes us in a separate category, so that they may more readily ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... of girl I have sometimes noticed with amused regret—I dare say you have too—though she is by no means so objectionable as the other kind I spoke of. She is a would-be child of nature. She has no thoughtfulness or weight about her; she is an engaging kitten who exists on the rather inadequate stock-in-trade of nice eyes; she is quite irresponsible and useless, and tells you so, in an ingenuous ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... gate had been reinforced by another man, to hold the crowd back. When the would-be spectators found that only work men and invited guests would be admitted to the yard the disappointed ones made a scurry for the nearest portions of the ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... became very much alarmed. Efforts were made to restore and remove the would-be drunkard, but Lucas was too good an actor, and was therefore in such a fit as to be unable to be moved hither or thither. "Should a physician be sent for?" asked Rothschild. But the housekeeper ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... falling by an instinctive balancing of the body which was very curious to notice. When they were well on to the plain they halted to consider their route, and, turning, Jess pointed to the long lines of vultures descending to feast on their would-be murderers. If they went down the river it would lead them to Standerton, and there they would be safe if they could slip into the town, which was garrisoned by English. But then, as they had gathered from the conversation of their escort, Standerton was closely invested ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... got his would-be son-in-law out of the house, Mr. Blandy determined to be fooled no further; he ordered Mary to write to Cranstoun telling him on no account to show his face again at Henley until his matrimonial difficulties were "quite decided." Tears and entreaties were of no avail; ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... concord among mankind, and to reconcile quarrelling husbands and wives. Syn (truth) guarded the door of Frigga's palace, refusing to open it to those who were not allowed to come in. When she had once shut the door upon a would-be intruder no appeal would avail to change her decision. She therefore presided over all tribunals and trials, and whenever a thing was to be vetoed the usual formula was to declare that Syn was ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... French army after another, with the despicable James at its head, was driven back; the purpose at one time being to establish James at the head of an independent Kingdom in Catholic Ireland. But that would-be King of Ireland was humiliated and sent back to France by the battle of Boyne ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... attack for an instant paralyzed the would-be murderers, and ere they had time to recover, he was laying about him with all the power at his command. In a moment two men fell, and as their heavy sticks slipped from their hands, Mark and Charlie seized them and ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... two thousand three hundred miles up this serpentine river, we discovered the entrance to the lake. Many had been the conjectures and counsels of would-be advisers when we started. Some said that there was no entrance to the lake from the river; others, that there was not sufficient depth of water for the steamer to pass through. On our port bow rose frowning rocks of forbidding aspect. Drawing nearer, we noticed, with ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... each member of the company were now riveted on that remarkable figure who had just begun to finger a few keys with one hand. He did not do as some would-be performers sometimes do, strike eight to ten keys as soon as they touch the piano, but, strange to say, he commenced playing ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... got the whole amount of nothing at all," he said at last, looking up breathlessly at the mountaineer. Albeit the wind was fresh and the altitude great, the sun was hot on the unshaded red clay path, and the nimble gyrations of the would-be artist brought plentiful drops to his brow. He took off his straw hat, and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, while he stared wistfully at the siren of his fancy, grimacing maliciously at him from the slope above. "If the confounded ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... concession from the Government for ten dollars an acre, which is the law when a potential mining district in unsurveyed territory is more than twenty miles by a wagon road from a railway. All he had to do with would-be prospectors was to chuck them out. He had got in ten stamps for his mill over the road I had built from Caraquet, and—since Macartney arrived—was milling stuff whose net result made me stare, after the miserable, two-dollar ore old Thompson had ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... personal meeting with Napoleon. The Emperor was far from averse, and made a formal proposal to that effect, which was promptly accepted; the intercourse between French and Russian officers grew warmer and closer every day, and the arrangements for an interview between the would-be Eastern and Western ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... occupied with advertisements and official announcements, while even the few remaining columns are often deplorably misused. One detestable custom, originally borrowed from France, is that of "padding" a journal with tenth-rate novels, pointless anecdotes and would-be humorous feuilletons, such as the weakest "comic annual" would decline without thanks. Another failing of Russian journalism is its fondness for the tu-quoque style of argument, retorting every mention of Poland by an allusion to Ireland. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... hard and secretly, until he had made so good a copy that the most practised eye alone could detect the counterfeit; and then concealing the original at his lodgings, he quietly awaited the legal attachment. It was duly levied, the sale took place, and the would-be amateur bought the familiar picture hanging in its accustomed position, and then boasted in the market-place of the success of his base scheme. Ere long one of Elliot's friends revealed the clever trick. The enraged purchaser commenced a suit, and, although ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... stated, to correct him, as and when he pleased; who could dispute it? For my own part, I entertained the most abhorrent feelings towards a man, who, without sense of shame, or decent regard for his station, thus unblushingly published his infamy amongst strangers, and this man a would-be patriot, too, and candidate for the Presidential chair, which, it will be remembered, he afterwards obtained. I was told that flogging his negroes was a favourite pastime with this eminently-distinguished general, and that he was by no ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... ages sleep th' ungarnered truths of Time, Where the pall of silence covers deeds of honor and of crime; Deeds of sacrifice and danger, which the careless earth forgets, There, in ever-deep'ning shadows, lie embalmed in mute regrets. Would-be-gleaners of the Present vainly grope amid this gloom; Flowers of Truth to be immortal must be gathered while they bloom, Else they pass into the Silence, man's neglect their only blight, And the Gleaner of the Ages stores them far from ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... many times during the next few hours. Each time the bell rang announcing the arrival of a visitor he rose to answer it perfectly sure that here were the would-be tenants whom his friend, in the mistaken kindness of his heart, was sending to him. Not that he had the slightest idea of renting his old home, but he dreaded the ordeal of refusing. In fact he was ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... growing obsolete literature—overawing the more enlightened effort. Deny it as we may, the University is still a feudal institution. Within the memory of man, there existed in England positively no school where the would-be engineer or manufacturer could be fitted for his career and at the same time be 'well educated.' George Stephenson was obliged to send his son to an 'University,' where some scraps of practical science—scanty scraps they ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... had not been deceived. Even at a distance Bart knew his friend the Beaver at a glance, and the would-be defenders of the camp saw the meeting, and the hearty ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... as soon as the first complimentary greetings were over, speaking in her kindest and most would-be-confidential tone, "Doctor, I am still uneasy about that boy of mine, and I have thought it best to come and see you at once, and tell you freely ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... An eminent would-be contributor was a prominent Pennsylvania politician, who had read a long and elaborate article, before some teachers' association, on an arithmetical problem about oxen eating grass, the power to solve which was taken as the highest mark of mathematical ability, among school ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... the most genuine, biography of Burns is furnished by his own writings. His letters will, if carefully studied, disprove many of the positions taken up so confidently by would-be interpreters of his history. It is not the purpose of this discursive paper to take up the details of the Clarinda episode; but philandering is scarcely the word by which to describe the mutual relations ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... through the United States, where the dry brilliancy of the climate and skies is favorable to the paying and receiving this melodious homage, and where musical bands, sometimes numbering fifty, are marshaled by personal or political admirers, under the balconies of reigning beauties or would-be-reigning public men. My total ignorance of this prevailing practice in the United States led to a very prosaic demonstration of gratitude on my part toward my first serenaders; for I opened my window and ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... conscience, worked out in terms of pure psychology. Or rather, it is a study of a sickly and a robust conscience side by side. "The conscience is very conservative," Ibsen has somewhere said; and here Solness's conservatism is contrasted with Hilda's radicalism—or rather would-be radicalism, for we are led to suspect, towards the close, that the radical too is a conservative in spite or herself. The fact that Solness cannot climb as high as he builds implies, I take it, that he cannot act as freely as he thinks, or as Hilda would goad him into thinking. At such an altitude ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... attacking Protestants. These special editions are very expensive and difficult to secure. The person who wishes to buy one of these Bibles must get permission from the vicar of his parish, and if the would-be purchaser is inclined towards Protestantism, the vicar will refuse to grant permission. The priests are not very much in sympathy with the idea of circulating even this annotated edition of the ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... hands of other firms, it will pay him to build new factories and stock them with the requisite machinery, and to begin the process of manufacture. There may be in existence already more bicycle works than are sufficient to supply the consumption of the community. But if a would-be manufacturer thinks he can withdraw from other makers a sufficient number of customers, he will set up works, and make new machines, though his methods of production and the goods he turns out ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... to the door. Already his hand was upon the knob when he saw the movement for which he had watched. Laverick, with a single bound, was upon his would-be assailant. The hand which had already closed upon the butt of the small revolver was gripped as though in a vice. With a scream of pain Lassen dropped the weapon upon the floor. Laverick picked it up, thrust it into his coat ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... should not obtrude their ugly heads here and there from under Branwell's finest phrases. And since there is no single vulgar, trite, or Micawber-like effusion throughout 'Wuthering Heights;' and since Heathcliff's passion is never once treated in the despicable would-be worldly fashion in which Branwell describes his own sensations, and since at the time that 'Wuthering Heights' was written he was manifestly, and by his own confession, too physically prostrate for any literary effort, we may conclude that Branwell ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... is this," Donegan said. "That's our side of it. Fredericks has friends—his brother's friends. Petty criminals, would-be criminals, unbalanced types. You know that. You've read ...
— Sight Gag • Laurence Mark Janifer
... their mirth ought to be chastened, till their language bears a relation to that of the higher persons. For example, nothing can be more absurd than in "Don Sebastian," and some of Southerne's tragedies, to hear the comic character answer in prose, and with a would-be witticism, to the solemn, unrelaxed blank verse of his tragic companion.[35] Mercutio is, I think, one of the best instances of such a comic person as may be reasonably and with propriety admitted into tragedy: from which, however, I do not exclude those lower characters, whose conversation ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... that it had been done openly in his presence, and had not given him a thought. But Lady Rowley and Sir Marmaduke had then been present also; and that man on that occasion had been the old friend of the old father, and not the would-be young friend of the young daughter. Trevelyan could hardly reason about it, but felt that whereas the one was not improper, the other was grossly impertinent, and even wicked. And then, again, his wife, ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... Arcivescovado. At the time when Gustavo was much better known at Turin than Camillo the suspicious radical could not persuade himself that one brother was not as much of an aristocrat as the other. When Mr. Cobden was cordially received by both Marquis and Count, a would-be wit exclaimed, "There goes Free-trade in the charge of Monopoly," which was understood to refer to the false accusation that the Cavours had stored up a quantity of grain in that year of scarcity, 1847, in order to sell it dear, the truth ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... your heart," after which he repeats the prayer addressed to the Ancient One, by which is probably meant the Fire (the Ancient White). A'y[n]in[)i] states that the final sentences should be masculine, i.e., His soul has faded, etc., and refer to any would-be seducer. There is no gender distinction in the third person in Cherokee. He claimed that this ceremony was so effective that no husband need have any fears for his wife after ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... as "a Lincoln man," when Motley writes again from Vienna to his mother, "I venerate Abraham Lincoln exactly because he is the true, honest type of American democracy. There is nothing of the shabby-genteel, the would-be-but-couldn't-be fine gentleman; he is the great American Demos, honest, shrewd, homely, wise, humorous, cheerful, brave, blundering occasionally, but through blunders struggling onwards towards what he believes the right." In a later ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... European wiseacres, the would-be statesmen, whether in or out of power, especially in England, and that opprobrium of our century, the English and the Franco-Bonapartist press, have decided to do all that their clever brains can scheme towards preventing this ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... forgets those they do not see every day and everywhere. How miserable is the fine lady's lot who cannot forget the world, and who is forgot by the world in a moment! How much more miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working her way up in the world with care and pains! By her, every the slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fashion, is marked and felt with jealous anxiety, and with a sense ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... nothing," he murmured, "nothing. I—I have forgotten what I was going to say." He sighed, and looked moodily at his feet. "The thoughts of a would-be poet," he mused, cynically. "How valuable they are—how the world must long for them—when he even forgets them himself! I guess I'd better keep still and let you talk a while," he ended, absently. But Lucy Ware sat gazing before ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... another from the Symposium of Plato, on pp. 69-74, and to the similarity between the method of study there enjoined upon the student of the humanities, or indeed of all art and nature, and the method imposed by Agassiz upon the would-be entomologist who was compelled first of all to observe a fish. In reforming the mind it is well to begin by contemplating some structure we never have seen before, concerning which we have no, ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... who had said, "I am the light of the world," and straightway the world burst upon him in light! Would this man ever need further proof that there was indeed a God of men? I suspect he had a grander idea of the Son of God than any of his disciples as yet. The would-be refutations of experience, for "since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind;" the objections of the religious authorities, "This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day;" endless possible perplexities of the understanding, ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... our assistance, the man had scrambled from beneath the carcass of his would-be slayer, without a scratch to indicate how close ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Press," the offerers of hospitality were absolutely overwhelming. But, obeying the best traditions of their order, they sternly, but courteously, refused all refreshment. It is fortunate they pursued this course, for had they received the entirely disinterested kindness of their would-be hosts, their recollections of the marvels of the Royal Naval Exhibition would no doubt have been of the haziest character imaginable. As it was, they were able to take their departure through the main entrance with some show of dignity, and not in a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... most vivid and voluble of writers, he derided the desire of self-expression; one of the most continuous and brilliant of talkers, he praised and upheld the virtue of silence. He spoke and wrote of himself as a would-be man of action condemned to twaddle; and Ruskin expressed very trenchantly what will always be the puzzle of Carlyle's life—that, as Ruskin said, he groaned and gasped and lamented over the intolerable burden of his ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... streams with luxuriant banks and pleasant, sheltered walks, were altogether to their taste. Here were their fish-ponds and their mills. Here were all the luxuries of Epicurean austerity. Even in the matter of comfort compare the cramped dungeons, made for defence, in which the would-be lords of the world dwelt, with the spacious democratic palaces, or the finely spaced rural villas, with no need to think of defence, in which men led the religious life. Compare this abbey even with Castle ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... The would-be sensational story which was now in Mr Jedwood's hands had perhaps more merit than 'Margaret Home'; its brevity, and the fact that nothing more was aimed at than a concatenation of brisk events, made it not unreadable. But Reardon thought of it with ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... time one of the would-be passengers would go out on the tracks to look and listen, and at last one of these announced that a train was on ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... your eyes"—he had just come to the end of this popular and gizzard-piercing tune and received his meed of applause, when Toinette came out of the kitchen, two great zinc crocks in her hands, and crossed to the pump in the corner of the yard. Three or four would-be pumpers, among them Doggie, went to ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... base to deter aggression. Lunar launching sites, perhaps located on the far side of the Moon, which could never be viewed directly from the Earth, could launch missiles earthward. They could be guided accurately during flight and to impact, and thus might serve peaceful ends by deterring any would-be aggressor."[16] ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... private life, the seeming weakness of his foreign policy, and his recent use of terrorism against the party of progress were forgotten; and to the sensitive Russian nature, ever prone to extremes, his figure stood forth as the friend of peace, and the would-be reformer, hindered in his efforts by unwise ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... enhanced thereby, something deliberately built, moreover, to stand the years, and abide the judgement of posterity. The house in Saint-Simon's day had belonged to one of those newly ennobled dukes, his contemporaries and would-be brethren, whose monstrous claims to rank with himself and the other real magnificences among the ducs et pairs de France drove him to distraction. It was now let out to a multitude of families, who began downstairs ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... painting. However, if I am to have what you have bought, I should like you to inform me where they are, when they are to be fetched, and by what kind of conveyance. For if Damasippus doesn't abide by his decision, I shall look for some would-be ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... time, watch the would-be angler. Women are often far more eager than men. The hotels of Tahoe keep their own fishing-boats. The larger ones have a fleet of twenty or more, and in the season this is found insufficient for the number ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... retired that night, but again she sat up in bed, as on the previous night, waiting and watching. And again, in the early hours of the morning, she saw the door handle turn, and she trilled out a laugh, hoping that the would-be ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... drown much sorrow for oneself. With its handful of fire, its two candles lighted, my "apartment" was more inviting. I bought myself paper, pens and ink. Great or small, what more can a writer do? He is but the would-be medium: will the spirit voices employ him or ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... have shared in all of them, except the first. So if you inform against me, you inform against him, and the father of Heda, whom your friend wishes to marry, will, according to your showing, be proved a gun-runner, a thief and a would-be murderer of his guests. I should advise you to leave that business alone, ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... his eyes knew nothing of friendship, "it is intolerable, this! Do you think that I do not see through these dummy waiters, these obsequious shopmen, these ladies who drop their eyes when I pass, these commissionaires, these would-be acquaintances? I tell you that they irritate me, this incompetent, futile crowd. You pit them against me! Bah! You should know better. When I choose to disappear, I shall disappear, and no one will follow me. When I strike, I shall strike, and no one will ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of similarity to the child labor movement is obvious, for the friends of the children early found that they needed much statistical information and that the great problem of the would-be reformer is not so much overcoming actual opposition—the passing of time gradually does that for him—as obtaining and formulating accurate knowledge and fitting that knowledge into the trend of his time. From this point of view and upon ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... need to keep watch against wild beasts, for Brownie slept, as it were, with one eye open, and the slightest symptom of curiosity among the wild fraternity was met by a growl so significant that the would-be ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... at Vire. The worthy host told me to forget him, when I reached my own country;[166] and that, if ever business or pleasure brought me again into Normandy, to remember that the Maire de Tallevende-le-Petit would-be always happy to renew his assurances of hospitality. At the same time, he entreated me to pay attention to a list of English books which he put into my hands; and of which he stood considerably in need. We bade farewell ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin |
