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Desire   /dɪzˈaɪər/   Listen
Desire

noun
1.
The feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state.
2.
An inclination to want things.
3.
Something that is desired.



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"Desire" Quotes from Famous Books



... encountered difficulties greater than he could overcome, and, after vain wrestlings, the words that broke from him, "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever," were words of despair. It was the desire of Washington's heart that Virginia should remove slavery by a public act; and as the prospects of a general emancipation grew more and more dim, he, in utter hopelessness of the action of the State, did all ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... priest, who mumble worship in your quire— Old monk and nun, ye scorn the world's desire, Yet in your frosty cells ye feel the fire! The fire of Heaven is not ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson

... that it attempted to establish English civil as well as criminal law, and at the same time required oaths which effectively prevented the French Canadians from serving in the very assembly which it professed a desire on the part of the king to establish. The English-speaking or Protestant people in the colony did not number in 1764 more than three hundred persons, of little or no standing, and it was impossible to place all power in their hands and to ignore nearly seventy thousand French Canadian Roman ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot

... similarly affected. Among the Romans the existence of the patria potestas gave a peculiar significance to the custom of adoption. The motive to the act was not so generally childlessness, or the gratification of affection, as the desire to acquire those civil and agnate rights which were founded on the patria potestas. It was necessary, however, that the adopter should have no children of his own, and that he should be of such an age as to preclude reasonable expectation of any being born to him. Another ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... me to declare publicly my new alliance at this time, and I desire that the news shall be received by you and all my subjects in Wirtemberg, not only without comment, but with fitting expressions of content and with feasting and rejoicing. My late wife, the Princess Johanna Elizabetha of Baden-Durlach, I direct ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... with a sigh,) there is nothing I desire so much as to see my poor father, and to know what he is doing." She had no sooner said this, when casting her eyes on a great looking-glass, to her great amazement she saw her own home, where her father arrived with a very dejected countenance; her sisters ...
— Beauty and the Beast • Marie Le Prince de Beaumont

... I was young, and hot, and readily stirred To quick desire. 'Twas tedious timing out The convalescence of the soldiery; And I beguiled the long and empty days By blissful yieldance to her sweet allure, Who had no arts, but what out-arted all, The tremulous tender charm of trustfulness. We met, and met, ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... give up romancing because I cannot think of any more that pleases me. I have been trying at Knollsea for a fortnight, and it is no use. I will never be a governess again: I would rather be a servant. If I am a schoolmistress I shall be entirely free from all contact with the great, which is what I desire, for I hate them, and am getting almost as revolutionary as Sol. Father, I cannot endure this kind of existence any longer; I sleep at night as if I had committed a murder: I start up and see processions ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... which was essential if she were a woman. It also suggested that he had inspired a large number of caprices, thereby he gratified his vanity and inspired hope in the lady that as a lover he would prove equal to her desire. It also helped to establish the moral atmosphere in which ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... proportioned, the literary judgements sound and illuminating; while the main purpose of conveying information is kept so steadily in view that, while the book is worthy of a place in the library, the student could desire no ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis

... the best of them, being indifferent to punishment so long as I could hit out effectively from the shoulder. One of the ushers, a dwarf of malignant disposition, was an awful tyrant, and we always had an ardent desire to tar and feather him, only we did not know how to set about the operation even if we had ventured to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... should never rest until every penny had been paid. There are those present who have known my every action since I set foot in this country; they know I have not eaten the bread of idleness, but they did not know the great object of my labour. The one end of my desire for wealth was that I might discharge those debts and redeem my father's honour. Thank God, sir, my exertions have not been in vain. Thank God, sir, I have long possessed property far more than sufficient ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... and publict governance, nor yit name us, or uther Princeis, bot with honour and reverence, utherwayis it will nocht be sufferrit. [SN: JESABELL WALD BE HONOURIT, BOT HELIAS WALD NOTT.] Attour,[921] sen ye haif presentlie the declaratioun of our intentioun, we desire to knaw lykwayis quhat sall be your pairt to us, that we may understand quhat to lippin for at your handis; quhairof we desire ane playne declaratioun in writt, with this beirar, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... Lane must be credited with the desire of associating the Bodley Head with the discovery of new humorists. Mr. Leacock sets out to make people laugh. He succeeds and makes them laugh at the right thing. He has a wide range of new subjects; the world ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... had expressed a desire to see the famous Cleopatra's Needle which had been brought from Egypt. She had heard it was something gigantic for a needle, and it would be worth a journey to New York. She wondered at their bringing it such a distance, and would have supposed ...
— The Last of the Peterkins - With Others of Their Kin • Lucretia P. Hale

... according to agreement, had repassed the Helvetic Alps and entered Italy on the north-east, by way of the Adige. Marius marched against them in July of the following year, 101 B.C. Ignorant of what had occurred in Gaul, and possessed, as ever, with the desire of a settlement, they again sent to him a deputation, saying, "Give us lands and towns for us and our brethren." "What brethren?" asked Marius. "The Teutons." The Romans who were about Marius began to laugh. "Let your brethren ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... nests—"castles in air," as Burroughs calls them; meadows in which the lark, vesper sparrow, and bobolink can disport; and forests stretching up into the mountains, wherein the shyest birds can enjoy all the seclusion they desire, content to sing unheard, as the flowers around them bloom unseen, except by those who love them well enough to seek ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... was an interesting one, and worthy of being briefly sketched. Having taken Ticonderoga, he grew warm with the desire to take Canada, and, on September 25, 1775, made a rash assault on Montreal with an inadequate body of men. The support he hoped for was not forthcoming, and he and his little band were taken, Allen, soon after, being sent in chains ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... bow, all adore; all see beyond nature, Spirit, and beyond evil, Good. All bear witness to the Invisible. Here we have the link which binds all peoples together. All men are equally creatures of sorrow and desire, of hope and fear. All long to recover some lost harmony with the great order of things, and to feel themselves approved and blessed by the Author of the universe. All know what suffering is, and yearn for happiness. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... growth of North Riding poetry in the first forty years of the nineteenth century, and passed from hand to hand the well-thumbed chap-books wherein were included poems like "Awd Daisy," "The Sweeper and Thieves," and the dialect-songs. The desire to have a share in the movement became more and more urgent, and when the West Riding joined in, it was inevitable that it should widen the scope of dialect poetry both in ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... was a habit that I could not easily relinquish. So now I began to read up and practice physical culture—which I had always spoken of as physical torture. I had read that any puny, warped little body could, by proper and persistent training, be made sturdy and strong. I had no desire to grow big, ugly muscles that look like knots, but I was effeminate enough to think that a touch of physical culture might enhance my beauty as well ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs

... all the nobler qualities nature has bestowed on man, in those who conceived the desire and executed the determination to be free. The heroic was most prominent: woman seemed to forget her feebleness and timidity, and boldly to dare, and with increased fortitude to bear every danger, every misfortune, with a heroism scarcely compatible with the delicacy of her nature. To this, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... of the moment, and even laugh to divert the person I am writing to, without any ill will on the subjects I mention. But in your situation that frankness might be prejudicial to you: and to write grave unmeaning letters, I trusted you was too secure of' me either to like them or desire them. I knew no news, nor could: I have lived quite alone at Strawberry; am connected with no court, ministers, or party; consequently heard nothing, and events there have been none. I have not even for this month ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... herself, was seized with a desire to make a capital S like Carl's. Finding a pen and some ink, she set to work, forgetting everything else till Bess, returning for something, exclaimed, "Why, Helen, what are ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard

... chance of establishing Slavery that you have any right to require of us. You decline to take the offer because you fear it will do you no good. Slavery will not go there. Why require protection where you will have nothing to protect? . . . All you appear to desire it is for New Mexico. Nothing else is left. Yet you will not accept New Mexico at once, because ten years of experience have proved to you that protection has been of no use thus far." These are somewhat extraordinary words in 1861 from a man who in 1850 had, as a Conscience ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... do you want to go to Rhodesia?" he had said; and Diana answered, "I don't know that we do want to go; but Meryl has suddenly developed into a violent Imperialist, and we go at her desire." ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... way greedy, I would ask neither food or bite, I would not begrudge turning Sunday into Friday if I could but get my heart's desire. Such a thing now as a guinea-hen would be bringing fashion to the door, throwing it a handful of yellow meal, and it in its speckled plumage giving out ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory

... studied the authorities, followed the auctions, and bought right and left, with reckless extravagance. But the taste soon palled upon her. With so much money at her command there was none of the spice of the hunt in the affair. She had but to express a desire for a certain treasure, and forthwith it was put ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... anything in the night," said Archie, and allowed the porter to push him into the upper berth, the first he had ever occupied. Wakened now and then by unusual jars, he heard nothing of Congdon. He stifled a desire to steal Isabel's photograph and in time slept ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... detective, to protest that till the message was actually in his hands he could know nothing about it. This protesting something was that part of a man which is driven into activity by his secret and strong desire, a desire which his instinct for the naked truth of things may declare to be vain, but which, nevertheless, will not ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... youth, a June day, fair and fresh and tender with dreams and longing and vague desire. The morn lingers and passes, but the noon has not reached its height before the clouds begin to rise, the sunshine dies, the air grows thick and heavy, the lightnings flash, the thunder breaks among the hills, rolls and gathers and ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus

... unwonted reserve between the girls since Charlotte's return,—a reserve which arose, on Miss Halliday's part, from the contest between girlish shyness and the eager desire for a confidante; and on the part of Miss Paget, from that gloomy discontent which had ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... shook the whole island every time it was discharged, and it was managed with much expertness by a renegade Frenchman in the service of Zofar. At this time Don Ferdinand de Castro, son to the governor arrived with a reinforcement. Mascarenhas having expressed a desire of acquiring some intelligence from the enemys camp, one Diego de Anaya Coutinno, a gentleman of note and of great strength, put on a helmet with a sword by his side and a spear in his hand, and let himself down from the wall under night. He soon discovered two Moors at some distance from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... Ahab coveted his neighbor's vineyard. After many years, so many that my childish longing was almost forgotten, I had it, I and my children. Together we played under the bee-haunted lindens, and looked at the sunset through the scarlet and yellow leaves of the sugar maples, and I learned that "every desire is the prophecy of its own fulfilment;" and if the fulfilment is long delayed, it is only that it may be richer and deeper when it ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall

... many a one. As he wrought by his roaring fire. And each one prayed for a strong steel blade, As the crown of his desire; And he made them weapons, sharp and strong, Till they shouted loud in glee. And gave him gifts of pearls and gold, And spoils of forest free. And they sang, "Hurrah for Tubal Cain, Who hath given us strength anew! Hurrah for the smith! hurrah for the fire! And ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... to get to Scotland. They were at Lankart near Invermoriston, and the nearest thing I could contrive was to join a reading party in Skye, a reading party of older men who manifestly had no great desire for me. For more than a year we never met at all, and all sorts of new things happened to us both. I perceived they happened to me, but I did not think they happened to her. Of course we changed. Of course in a measure and relatively we forgot. Of course there were weeks when we ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... to desire the death of the rhinoceros than to accomplish it. They had no horses—at least none that could be mounted—and to attack the animal on foot would be a game as dangerous as idle. He would be like enough to impale one of them on his great spike, or else trample them ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... him into this dilemma. So he talked to Lillie like a brother; or, in other words, made himself disagreeably explicit,—showed her her sins, and told her her duties as a married woman. The charming fair ones who sentimentally desire gentlemen to regard them as sisters do not bargain for any of this sort of brotherly plainness; and yet they might do it with great advantage. A brother, who is not a brother, stationed near the ear of a fair friend, is commonly very careful not to compromise ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... their constitutional advisers, at least, but Adams flattered himself that he could carry on a non-partisan administration. The results were disastrous, for at least two of the Cabinet were not above using the patronage of office to further the cause of Jackson. In his laudable desire not to allow the Government to become "a perpetual and unintermitting scramble for office," Adams refused to make removals in the civil service on partisan grounds, yet he retained in office underlings who labored incessantly in the ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... no more fight left in him. He was conscious only of an immense desire for something he would ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner

... books permits the whole range of expression, from merely reading the stories effectively, to "acting them out" with as little, or as much, stage-setting or costuming as a parent or teacher may desire. The stories are especially designed to be read as a part of the regular reading work. Many different plans for using the books will suggest themselves to the teacher. After a preliminary reading of a story during the study period, the teacher may assign different parts to various children, ...
— Children's Classics in Dramatic Form - Book Two • Augusta Stevenson

... suddenly broke this approach to silence; they came from the camp of dragoons, were taken up further to the right by the camp of the Hanoverians, and further on still by the body of infantry. It was tattoo. Feeling no desire to sleep, she listened yet longer, looked at Charles's Wain swinging over the church tower, and the moon ascending higher and higher over the right-hand streets of tents, where, instead of parade and bustle, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... and did his best to appeal to her womanhood; he analyzed her illness and showed her some of the damage it had wrought both in her character and to others. He showed her the demoralization which had grown out of her wretched surrender to impulsive desire. He revealed to her the necessity for the effacement of much of her false self and the true spiritualizing of her mind as the only road to wholesome living. That same day Dr. Platt received a telegram peremptorily demanding that he come for her. Upon his arrival he had a short talk with the ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... not assure the Negro that the Northwest Territory was to be an asylum for freedom when in 1763 it passed into the hands of the British, the promoters of the slave trade, and later to the independent colonies, two of which had no desire to exterminate slavery. Furthermore, when the Ordinance of 1787 with its famous sixth article against slavery was proclaimed, it was soon discovered that this document was not necessarily emancipatory. As the right to hold slaves was guaranteed ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson

... showing even no ill-temper, Mr. Perkins seemed but a poor match for Barber, whose appearance was more gorillalike than usual (hair disheveled, heavy shoulders humped, teeth grinding savagely under puffed and bristling lips, huge hands at the ends of long, curving arms, spreading and closing with the desire to clutch and rend). Yet Big Tom was plainly not so cocksure of himself as he had been, while the scoutmaster wore an air of ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates

... worn or soiled by the child. The practice of euphemism rests on this belief, as it was thought that if a person's name was said and a part of him was thus caused to be present the rest would probably follow. Hence the rule of avoiding the use of the names of persons or things of which one does not desire the presence. Thus Sir E.B. Tylor says: "The Dayak will not speak of the smallpox by name, but will call it 'The Chief,' or 'Jungle leaves,' or say, 'Has He left you?' The euphemism of calling the Furies the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... socials, in the past, and while Cap'n Ira was so much at sea, had been Prudence Ball's chief relaxation. She was naturally of a social disposition, and the simple pleasure of being with and of a party of other matrons of the church was almost the height of Prudence's mundane desire. ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper

... That astute darkey was altogether too smart for the overseer, and brought him only such news as he thought the man wanted to hear; and more than half of that had not a word of truth in it. In the first place his only thought and desire was to keep the overseer from telling his mistress that he stole the breastpin; but as Hanson became more communicative and stood less on his guard, and the boy's eyes were opened to the startling fact that Mrs. Gray had an enemy in the overseer, he threw the fear of punishment ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... got any particular desire to be flattened out, or squeezed dry like an orange. It's not at all a nice idea, is it? But look, Lenox," she went on, pointing downwards, "surely this isn't air at all, or at least it's something between air and water. Aren't those things swimming about in it—something like fish in ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith

... second step is lawmaking by the representative legislature, congress, or parliament, usually after previous deliberation and recommendation by a committee; in some states the people have the right by referendum to ratify or reject the legislation, and even to initiate such legislation as they desire. The third step is the arrangement for carrying out the law that has been passed. This is managed by the executive department of the government. The fourth step is the actual administration of law and government by officials who are sometimes ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe

... dressed, even with one trousers-leg higher than the other, and of how awkward he was, and of how poorly, at first, he spoke and with what apparent embarrassment. The chairman of the meeting got Lincoln a glass of water, and Conwell thought that it was from a personal desire to help him and keep him from breaking down. But he loves to tell how Lincoln became a changed man as he spoke; how he seemed to feel ashamed of his brief embarrassment and, pulling himself together and putting aside the written ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell

... reason why I should not ramble on in this way all night; but then, there is no reason why I should. There is only one thing more that I desire to note, and that is, that during the existence of the "Atlantic," American authors have become very nearly emancipated from fear or dependence on English criticisms. In comparison with former days they care now very little what London ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... secret of originality: this it is that we desire in the theatre:—not new material, for the old is still the best; but familiar material rendered new by an imagination that informs it with significance and makes ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton

... hesitated and closed them again. Already she had recognised the fact that this was not a man to be snubbed. Neither had she, notwithstanding her momentary irritation, any real desire to do so. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... objects are natural that they require no support from and lend no warrant to that accursed spirit of sex-antagonism which many well-meaning women now display—doubtless by a natural reflex, because it is the spirit of the worst men everywhere. It is primarily men's desire for sex-dominance that engenders a sex-resentment in women; but the spirit is lamentable, whatever its origin and wherever it be found. It is most lamentable in the bully, the drunkard, the cad, ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... be kind enough to leave me alone," said Margie. "I want the last hours of my free life to myself. I will ring when I desire your attendance." ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... now?" returned Cornelius spitefully. "I hope you may have what you want. For my part I don't desire to be better than my neighbor. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... horse, and placed himself and all his following at the mercy of the king. The Count of Valois said a few words in his favor, but Philip, cutting his brother short, said, addressing himself to Guy, "I desire no peace with you, and if my brother has made any engagements with you, he had no right to do so." And he had the Count of Flanders taken off immediately to Compiegne, "to a strong tower, such that all could see him," ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... herself. Kirk should have friends, but they must be new ones. In a little while, when this crazy desire to keep herself and him alone together in a world of their own should have left her, they would begin to build up a circle. But these men whose vocabulary included the words "Do you remember?" must be eliminated ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... observed. I must own that she was quite truthful; she also managed to get married—suburban happiness and no position—but, as I said, she was exceptional. Personally, I feel sure that I should never have been married if I had seemed to be what I really was. I cannot understand this desire to be natural—it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various

... never dug before, and many who did not intend to dig—pickpockets, horse thieves, and jumpers. The prospectors' claim proved the richest, and the jumpers and the lawyers paid particular attention to it. The trail of the old serpent is over everything. The desire of the jumpers was to obtain possession of the rich claim, or of some part of it; and the lawyers longed for costs, and they got them. The prospectors paid, and it was a long time before they could ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... and "life" in general. Sylvia had unlocked the door of material opportunity for Austin; but she had done far more than this. She had given him the vision of the higher things that lay beyond that, and the desire to attain them. Further than that, neither she nor any other woman could help him. The future, to make or mar, lay now within his own hands. And in the same spirit of consecration with which the knights of old prayed that they might attain true chivalry ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes

... laying out a middle ground where the opposing parties could still stand together without open conflict. "I am no friend," said he, "to slavery. The Searcher of hearts knows that every pulsation of mine beats high and strong in the cause of civil liberty. Wherever it is practicable and safe I desire to see every portion of the human family in the enjoyment of it; but I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of other people. The liberty of the descendants of Africa in the United States is incompatible with the liberty and safety of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord

... it were, Mercedes, poor and lone as you are, you suit me as well as the daughter of the first shipowner or the richest banker of Marseilles! What do such as we desire but a good wife and careful housekeeper, and where can I look for these ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... something white. But he had straight-glancing, quick, far-reaching eyes, that only seemed to flinch and lose their amazing power before the immensity of the sea. He was barefooted, and looking as outlandish as the heart of Swaffer could desire. Leaving the horses on the turn, to the inexpressible disgust of the waggoner he bounded off, going over the ploughed ground in long leaps, and suddenly appeared before the mother, thrust the child into ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad

... the Congress for the 8th of January is dictated by the desire to provoke a conflict between the Soviets and the Constituante, and thus botch this last. Anxious for the fate of the country, the Executive Committee chosen at the first elections decides to convoke at Petrograd for ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... say, that effects were produced which acted on me by terror and cowardice, of pain and sudden death, not (so help me God!) by any temptation of pleasure, or expectation, or desire of exciting pleasurable sensations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister will bear witness so far, as to say, that the longer I abstained, the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments—till the moment, the direful moment ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... brushed her hair, moved about softly in the uncertain candlelight. And as she did so she became more and more unable to resist the temptation to say "Good-night" to Richie again. Neither brain nor heart was deeply involved in this desire, but some influence, stronger than either, urged ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... whisper from me to my mother, and from my mother to her ladyship, failed of effect: after turning half round, as if to ask me what I said—a look which did not pass unnoticed by Miss Nancy—her ladyship finished her sentence—"And tell Fowler I desire she will bring me the muff that I gave her last week—the day ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... he would be sure to let his client know if anything suitable came his way. Very soon places, apparently quite to Mrs. Ogilvie's heart, did come in the agent's way, and then somehow, in some fashion, other house agents got wind of Mrs. Ogilvie's desire, and now scarcely a post came that did not bring her most tempting prospectuses with regard to country places. There was one in particular which so exactly pleased her that she became quite distrait and restless except when she was talking ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade

... an age of surprising inventions and marvelous machinery. As a natural sequence, ours is an age of delegation. The habit of doing nothing by hand that can be as well done by a machine begets the desire to seek out new and presumably better methods of performing every duty appointed to each of us. Fine penmanship is no longer a necessity for the clerk or business man; skill with her needle is not demanded of the wife and mother. Our kitchens bristle with labor-saving ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland

... of the Seminoles must be wise with the wisdom of the owl in council," he said, as soon as the fit of coughing had left its victim. "Payment from father or son we desire not, only the counsel of wisdom now. We are but braves in the hunt or fight, and great danger threatens, now, but the ripe wisdom of a great chief may be able to point ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... eyes as she spoke seemed to me—a physically weak but still mentally strong man at the moment—to have in them something weird, something that one could not affect either to ignore or despise. What could this woman know of my desire to leave the island in my boat? What could the man Tematau know of it? Never had I spoken of such an intention to any person, and I knew that, even in my worst attacks of fever and ague, I had never been delirious in the slightest degree. A sudden resentment for ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke

... contemptuous, Protestants; nay, of Protestants who, so far as they come from Protestant Universities and public schools, do know their own system, do know, in proportion to their general attainments, the doctrines and arguments of Protestantism. I should desire, then, to encourage in our students an intelligent apprehension of the relations, as I may call them, between the Church and Society at large; for instance, the difference between the Church and a religious sect; the respective prerogatives of the Church ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... loaded with maize, venison, fish, and other articles of provision after their fashion, and lest any of their men might be detained, this boat was navigated by four women, who were well treated at our ships. By the desire of Donnacona, our captain sent a message on shore by these women, to assure the natives that their chief would be brought back by him to Canada at the end of ten or twelve months: They seemed much pleased at this intelligence, and promised when he brought back Donnacona that they would give ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr

... was inflicted upon the parent of the other, who denied the law, or the power under the law, supposing it to exist, of the other to adjudge and to execute its sentence. In the meeting of these chiefs, and their apparent reconciliation, was to be seen, a desire that the nation should reunite, and that there should be amity between the bands, or divided parties, for the national good, and for the good of all the parties or people. But there could never be between the two ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... ideal of a girl. She had taught him the difference between bravery and bullying and she had been his inspiration in the task to which he had pledged himself—to be a peacemaker on the mountain. Once, her coolness and courage had saved his life, and on that day he had promised to fulfil her desire, to bridge the enmity between south-side and north-side. His methods had not always been such as Dorothy would have approved but the result was satisfactory. In school and out of it, peace prevailed on the "Heights," and Mike Martin was a nobler ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... destined to be, more formidable in its control of the minds of men. He looked for its spread over the whole of Christendom, and throughout the winter he spent at Riverdale he was ready to meet all listeners more than half-way with his convictions of its powerful grasp of the average human desire to get something for nothing. The vacuous vulgarity of its texts was a perpetual joy to him, while he bowed with serious respect to the sagacity which built so securely upon the everlasting rock ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... cultivated the good graces of the two soldiers who were guarding him. He bought for them mescal and other fiery drinks which were now being sold in view of the coming festival. Their good nature increased and also their desire to get rid of a task that had been imposed upon them. Why should they guard a boy when everybody else was getting ready ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... have seen Deirdre, and I saw her also truly, and while I was looking at her through the bicker-hole on the door, Naois, son of Uisnech, knocked out my eye with one of the dice in his hand. But of a truth and verity, although he put out even my eye, it were my desire still to remain looking at her with the other eye, were it not for the hurry you told me to be in," ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... had stayed quite a while at the studio, listening to Mere Bideau's garrulous confidences. Now and again he had asked her a question, forced thereto by some obscure but none the less intense desire to know what Nancy Dampier's husband was like. And the old woman had acknowledged, in answer to a word from him, that her master was not a ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... saying: "Take it! We are not killing him for his money." A key, too, was found; that Bastide kept. Madame Bancal had a hankering for the fine shirt of the dead man, and remarked covetously that it looked like a chorister's shirt; she was diverted from her desire, however, on being presented with an amethyst ring on Fualdes' finger. This ring was taken away the following day by a stranger for a ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... are "Commanding mansions," "Bijou maisonettes," and "Desirable residences."—It is not difficult; the mansion that has a back-staircase is commanding, the "Bijou" is for the newly-married, or the actress, but the "Desirable residence" is what you desire.—What is then the "square hall"?—It is neither round nor oblong; therefore it is square. It is likewise in a square.—Is it geometrically the same as the Bridge of Asses?—I do not know. Sir.—Where is the capital accommodation for the poor ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various

... against. In fact, Bertie was driven by stress of circumstances into a stroke of genius. He took his leap, and entered on a period of suspense, anxiety and sustained excitement which had a wild exhilaration and sense of recklessness in it. He suffered much from a strong desire to burst into fits of unseasonable laughter. His nerves were so tensely strung that it might have been expected he would be irritable; and so he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... skill and care in the economy of a house. We are all apt to set too high a value on what we ourselves have done; and I may do this; but I do firmly believe, that to cure any young woman of this fatal sublimation, she has only patiently to read my COTTAGE ECONOMY, written with an anxious desire to promote domestic skill and ability in that sex, on whom so much of the happiness of man must always depend. A lady in Worcestershire told me, that until she read COTTAGE ECONOMY she had never baked in ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... believe that he was harsh and choleric, with a soldier's high notions of discipline; the young man's story moved her, his determination pleased her own high spirit. Always with a touch of romance in her, and always sympathizing with each desire of ambition, she entered into Vivian's aspirations with an alacrity that surprised himself. She was charmed with the idea of ministering to the son's fortunes, and ultimately reconciling him to the father,—through ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... history to Miss Pfeifer somehow never presented itself, although I continued to call frequently, and spent many delightful evenings with her and her uncle. However, I consoled myself with the reflection that the occasion for such a revelation no longer existed, and I had no desire needlessly to persecute a man whose iniquities could, at all events, harm no one but himself. And still, knowing from experience his talent for occult diplomacy, I took the precaution (without even remotely implicating Miss Hildegard) to ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Home Rulers, whether in Ireland or in Great Britain, ever seriously thought of conciliating Ulster, as Mr. Redmond professed to desire, they never made a greater mistake than in saying and writing insulting things about Carson. It only endeared him more and more to his followers, and it intensified the bitterness of their feeling against ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... knows ... what it is we desire to do. What the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. GLADSTONE) desires to do no human being knows. If we have done our part, as we have done, to clear the issues, all we can ask him is to do his part, to lay before the electorate of this country ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various

... his mind to the exclusion of all else, a wild, fierce desire to fight, to kill, at the thought that the hated foreigner should enter his house, sit in his chair, drink from his glass. It wrought a change in all his nature; everything that went to make up his daily life—wife, business, the methodical prudence of the small ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... unexpected turn of events. It was a part of her religion not to be simply passively submissive to His will, but in it always to rejoice. The psalmist's declaration, "I delight to do Thy will, O my God," was the expression of her heart's desire. ...
— Rosa's Quest - The Way to the Beautiful Land • Anna Potter Wright

... he found closed against him in his attempts to escape. But he did not come to Leatherhead solely because it lay on the road to the south. His little daughter lay at the point of death at her uncle's house, and his desire was to see her once more before she died. The once mighty Lord Chancellor, dressed as a common sailor with shaven eyebrows and coaldust smeared on his cheeks, hated with a furious intensity of loathing which has never been felt for an Englishman before ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... but made no informing comment. They argued the constitutional right of secession, depicted the firm determination of the South, were confident of early acquiescence by the North, and especially laid stress on the Southern desire for free trade. Russell's own report to Lyons on this interview and on one held six days later, May 9, is in substantial agreement, but much more is made by him than by the Commissioners of a question put by Russell as to a Southern plan of reviving the African slave-trade[141]. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... said solemnly: "So may God and St. John prosper me at my need, as I will do my devoir as your champion, knightly, truly, and manfully. Go now, Magdalen, and choose at your will among the burgesses of the Fair City, present or absent, any one upon whom you desire to rest your challenge, if he against whom you bring plaint shall prove to ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... the testimony of a Virginian gentleman, made a century ago; I do not care to more than point to the possible infusion of other than English blood into the veins of the gentlemen who desire to adopt the Cavalier as their ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... life—a system of unseen terrorism, a system of terror and tyranny that the well-disposed class of the community ought to detest and abhor, and in reference to which, on all sides, I have heard, in this county and other counties, one universal expression of desire—that some means should be found to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... reply, and presently Guy asked whether he would go up to dress? Having no other way of showing his displeasure, he refused, and remained nursing his ill-humour, till he forgot how slight the offence had been, and worked himself into a sort of insane desire—half mischievous, half revengeful—to be as provoking as ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the conquest of Africa; but the infantry, for the most part levied in Thrace and Isauria, yielded to the more prevailing use and reputation of the cavalry; and the Scythian bow was the weapon on which the armies of Rome were now reduced to place their principal dependence. From a laudable desire to assert the dignity of his theme, Procopius defends the soldiers of his own time against the morose critics, who confined that respectable name to the heavy-armed warriors of antiquity, and maliciously observed, that the word archer is introduced by Homer [8] as a term ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... had seemed so real, it could not be a dream, he thought; a desire to throw light upon the puzzle excited him; he managed to reach the door, opened it after many efforts, and stood on the threshold of his salon. There they were—his dear pictures, his statues, his Florentine bronzes, his porcelain; the sight of them revived him. ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... Her desire to forbid the proposed visit, struggling with her awe of the powerful man at her side, confused her. She couldn't think clearly. She twisted her fingers into her ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... Madrid as an envoy from the governess of the Netherlands, and the two painters, who had many points in common, and who had already corresponded, became fast friends. By the advice of Rubens, Velasquez was induced to put into execution his cherished desire of visiting Italy, the king granting his favourite painter leave of absence, the continuance of his salary, and a ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... adult son. Condivi reports that Michelangelo explained his meaning in the following words: "Do you not know that chaste women maintain their freshness far longer than the unchaste? How much more would this be the case with a virgin, into whose breast there never crept the least lascivious desire which could affect the body? Nay, I will go further, and hazard the belief that this unsullied bloom of youth, besides being maintained in her by natural causes, may have been miraculously wrought to convince the world of the virginity ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... to San Francisco I projected a pleasure journey to Japan and thence westward around the world; but a desire to see home again changed my mind, and I took a berth in the steamship, bade good-bye to the friendliest land and livest, heartiest community on our continent, and came by the way of the Isthmus to New York—a trip that was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... aureoles, lifted throats, and form of harp and dulcimer, he fell prone in great bitterness on the misery of earthly life. His happiness and ambitions appeared to him less than the scattering of a little sand on the sea-shore. Joy is passion, passion is suffering; we cannot desire what we possess; therefore desire is rebellion prolonged indefinitely against the realities of existence; when we attain the object of our desire, we must perforce neglect it in favour of something still unknown, and so we progress from illusion to illusion. ...
— Celibates • George Moore

... there' did he make any reply; nor, when Miss Pecksniff opened the door again, and shading the candle with her hand, peered out, and looked provokingly round him, and about him, and over him, and everywhere but at him, did he offer any remark, or indicate in any manner the least hint of a desire to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... to Florence, who is unusually fine in her ideas of propriety; but she comes to see that Ella's way is the only outlet for youth and the desire ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... Do we desire the love of our fellows in our seasons of trial? Then we must love them when they need its cheering influence most. Do we long for sympathy in our sorrow and pain? Then we shall have it if we have also wept with those who weep. Are we hoping to reap eternal life? Then we must not sow to ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody

... the Melek's death. He is a worthy man. But many do desire it—kings of the West, kinsmen of the Marquess, above all the Melek's blood-brother. One of that prince's men, as I judge him, is with him ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... accommodated to the common notions and prejudices of men, it is scarce possible to deliver the naked and precise truth without great circumlocution, impropriety, and (to an unwary reader) seeming contradictions; I do therefore once for all desire whoever shall think it worth his while to understand what I have written concerning vision, that he would not stick in this or that phrase, or manner of expression, but candidly collect my meaning from the whole sum and tenor of my discourse, ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley

... make an application to the Committee, when I hear you have appointed one, for the assistance which most pressing circumstances now compel me to call for; and all I desire is, through a sincere wish that our friendship may not be interrupted, that the answer to that application may proceed from a bona fide Committee, with their signatures, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... treaty or otherwise, to our satisfaction. An approach to that result has been made by legislative acts, whereby many serious impediments which had been raised by the parties in defense of their respective claims were removed. An earnest desire exists, and has been manifested on the part of this Government, to place the commerce with the colonies, likewise, on a footing of reciprocal advantage, and it is hoped that the British Government, seeing the justice of the proposal and its importance to the colonies, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe

... attempts (of which several had been made in Ireland) at a republication. It is proper that I should state, that the persons with whom I was subsequently acquainted, whose names had occurred in that publication, were made my acquaintances at their own desire, or through the unsought intervention of others. I never, to the best of my knowledge, sought a personal introduction to any. Some of them to this day I know only by correspondence; and with one of those it was begun by myself, in consequence, however, of a polite verbal ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... own I have no right to insist. You owe obligations to her ten thousand times more sacred than any you can owe to others, and in that light let them be respected and observed. It is natural that she should desire to remain with her relations and friends. As to friends, she could not need them anywhere—she would have them in abundance here. Give my kind regards to Mr. —— and his family, particularly to Miss E. Also to your mother, brothers and sisters. Ask little ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... run on in a breathless race; till a weariness and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms. often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... he said with a faint smile. "I trust you will soon feel at home in Putnam Hall. It is Captain Putnam's desire to have all of his boys, as he calls them, feel ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield

... and woe were heard all over the castle as they slowly bore the body to the domestic chapel, while some drew near, impelled by an irresistible desire to gaze upon it, and then cried aloud in excess of woe. Amongst the others, Redwald approached, and gazed fixedly upon the corpse; and Eric the steward often declared, in later days, that he saw the wound bleed ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... they die, excepting such as are pleased to live. There is good husbandry in enjoying it: I enjoy it double to what others do; for the measure of its fruition depends upon our more or less application to it. Chiefly that I perceive mine to be so short in time, I desire to extend it in weight; I will stop the promptitude of its flight by the promptitude of my grasp; and by the vigour of using it compensate the speed of its running away. In proportion as the possession of life ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... The mother and son, after sitting silent and pensive during the evening, retired early to bed. On the next day, urged on by his anxious desire to get the situation of which he had heard, Hiram again called at the counting room of Mr. Easy, his heart trembling with hope and fear. There were two or three men present. Mr. Easy cast upon him rather an impatient look as he entered. His appearance had evidently ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... state he gave utterance to the story, which Endaemon-Joannes relates in his own words, as follows:—"The day before Father Garnet's execution my mind was suddenly impressed (as by some external impulse) with a strong desire to witness his death, and bring home with me some relic of him. I had at that time conceived so certain a persuasion that my design would be gratified, that I did not for a moment doubt that I should witness some immediate testimony from God in favour of the innocence of his saint; though as often ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... marriage should only continue so long as it pleased either party to it —for a year, or a month, or a day. She had not given much heed to this, but she saw its justice now in a dash of revealing desire. It must be right. God would not have permitted her to love George Selby as she did, and him to love her, if it was right for society to raise up a barrier between them. He belonged to her. Had he not confessed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... I desire gratefully to acknowledge to Mr. Casper Keytel of Monille Point, Cape Town, his very kind permission to use the excellent photographs taken by him; and also my indebtedness to my husband for help in ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow

... offered the white men human skulls from which the flesh had not yet been taken. By this Cook knew the people were cannibals. Some were observed to be wearing spoons of European make as ornaments round their necks. What we desire to believe we easily accept. The white men did not ascribe the spoons to traders from New Spain on the south, or the Russian settlements to the north; but thought this place must be within trading distance of Hudson Bay, whence the Indians must have obtained ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... The amiable desire of doing good in the inhabitants, seemed to have exceeded their ability; and, to the grief of many, it lay dormant for twelve years. In 1778, the matter was revived with vigor; subscriptions filled apace, and by the next year the hospital was finished, at the expence of ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton

... petted and played with by us when we could spare the time, and to take up his quarters at night in Billy's kennel, upon a luxurious bed of sweet-scented hay; while the bows, upon which I expended some pains, promised to be everything that I could desire. Billy and I made another voyage to the swamp in North Island and collected reeds enough to make some hundreds of arrows, which we headed with hard, sharp thorns, embedded in about three inches of clay at the head to impart ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood

... in me to desire to know whether you love the young man whom I understand you are to marry, I AM very odd,' said Martin. 'For that is ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... the most beautiful thing in life. She is mine, my very own, her father gives her to me for marriage—marriage, and 'tis a speedy one he asks, and she shall have it. I love her, love her, my whole being throbs with mad desire. She is the sweetest maid on earth, and I drink from the cup upon which her rich, red lips have rested; ah, 'tis sweet!" He poured a bumper and drank, then flung from the room with ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne

... father; the trouble is with me. I have no desire for food." She smiled at the waiter so sweetly that he nodded as if to say, "I ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland

... there is any irritability of the bladder, any scalding on urination, or a very great frequency of emptying the bladder in the early months of pregnancy, a physician should be consulted at once; in the last months of pregnancy there is a desire to evacuate the bladder frequently, and sometimes at the last there is an incontinence of urine, which is due to the descent of the uterus and the great pressure on the bladder; this condition disappears with ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith

... mine, with whom I had been at great pains that he should grow up in the faith and wholesome discipline. Thereto I had fed him upon precious Thomas Boston of Ettrick and the works of godly Mr. Erskine, desiring with great desire that one day he might, by my learning and the blessing of Almighty God, even come to wag his head in a pulpit—a thing which, because of the sins of a hot youth, it had never been in my power, though much in my heart, ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... him to be removed to a private house, where he can remain until he has recovered, and he will then, I hope, be allowed to return to France without waiting for an exchange of prisoners. Were he to be sent back with others, he would probably at once be compelled to serve afloat, and his great desire is, I understand, to return to his own family, to follow his ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston

... incorrectness of my opinion; because that which is founded in truth is, after all the only thing that is 'good and nourishing' to the understanding. The sound mind pants only after truth; and as he knows eternal truth is unalterable, he is not foolish enough even to desire, it should be what it is not. The reason why we often desire that which we cannot have is because, not knowing the whole truth, we do not know but that we may have ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou

... hand, but working hard with it on certain public occasions. His Basutos are of the same family with the Makololo to whom I refer. The younger Makololo, who have been accustomed from their infancy to lord it over the conquered Makalaka, have unfortunately no desire to imitate the agricultural tastes of their fathers, and expect their subjects to perform all the manual labor. They are the aristocracy of the country, and once possessed almost unlimited power over their vassals. Their privileges were, however, much abridged ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... The high places of scholarship felt the new infection. Early in 1648, Joseph Beaumont, afterwards Master of Peterhouse, and Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, published his poem called Psyche, or Love's Mystery, in twenty cantos. "My desire is," he says in the preface, "that this book may prompt better wits to believe that a divine theam is as capable and happy a subject of poetical ornament, as any pagan or humane device whatsoever." The poem is about four times as long as Paradise Lost, and was written in ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

... the following morning, I entered his apartment and addresses myself to Poor Jr. as severely as I could (for, truthfully, in all his follies I had found no ugliness in his spirit—only a good-natured and inscrutable desire of wild amusement) reminding him of the authority his father had deputed to me, and having the venturesomeness to hint that the son should show some respect ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington

... tumbled out of it. What should he do with them all? he wondered. But he never thought of spending the money on himself, because he was content to pass the rest of his days as he had been doing for ever so long, and he really had no desire for any ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... sure. I 'ope so. It will not be by any desire on my part, more partickler when you're just settin' up 'ousekeepin' with your good lady 'ere. But there's no tellin' in these matters. That's where it is, you see—there's no tellin'. And, arter all my experence, ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... author of it is I by name, and that they beg not only his indulgence, but the honour of his correspondence, &c. As I am not at all disposed to be either so indulgent, or so correspondent, as they desire, I have but one bad way left to escape the honour they would inflict upon me; and, therefore, am obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... bound to fish?-Yes; but we are bound to pay the fishermen there the same price as is paid by the other curers through the country. The curers very often pay a higher current price than they can afford, just from a desire to get the people's ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... of partnership, the share of each member in the burdens and in the profits, present difficulties which will delay, and may prevent, the consummation; time alone can show. The noticeable factor in this change of mind, however, is the affectionate desire manifested by both parent and children to ensure the desired end. Between nations long alien we have high warrant for saying that interest alone determines action; but between communities of the same blood, and when the ties of dependence on the one part are still ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... breaking billows. It is another world here, like to nothing that any man has seen or ever will see. The people of a city could live in this place and yet leave room for others. My own rooms are the first you come to; lofty as a church, dim as one, yet furnished with all that a woman could desire. Yes, indeed, all I can desire. In my dressing-room are gowns from Douse's and hats from Alphonsine's, jewels from the Rue de la Paix, furs from Canada—all there to call back my life of two short years ago, that laughing life of Paris and the cities ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton

... were not slow to shoot. The confidence of the native in European justice was shaken, and the work of years was undone. Security on both sides was gone, and the missionary, who had been sure of a welcome for ten years, might find himself in face of a population burning with the desire to revenge themselves on the first white man who came ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... is prepared for her highness. Afterward you may call upon Count Zellerndorf, whom I understand returned to Lustadt yesterday, and notify him that I will receive him in an hour. Inform the Serbian minister that I desire his presence at the palace immediately. Lose no time, lieutenant, and be sure to impress upon the Serbian ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... time, but pushed through the wood as fast as he could. It was hard to restrain his desire to break into a run, but he did so, for nothing could have been gained and much was likely to be lost by such a course. Despite the bright moon overhead, few of its rays found their way through the dense ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... expressed a desire to be present at the post-mortem examination, and the doctors did not fail to pronounce the cause of her death to be an attack of cholera morbus (so Mademoiselle de Montpensier states), and that mortification had for some time past set in. He was not the ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... I shall pay thee double rent, But gone is all my silver, and all my gold is spent. And well enough thou seest that I bring naught with me And many things are needful for my good company. Since by favor I win nothing by might then must I gain. I desire by thy counsel to get ready coffers twain. With the sand let us fill them, to lift a burden sore, And cover them with stamped leather ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon

... me to go to Class Day without a train. It's been the desire of my heart to have one, and now I will, if I never have another gown to my back!" ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... had the sacred A. B. "tailed on" to his name at a grand sanhedrim of solemn blacked-gowned fools, sagely called a commencement, because a youngster there finishes his studies, he felt a strong desire to visit "the round world and them that dwell therein," and, like many New England youth, not only then but within my own observation and time, and before the signature of the august "praeses" was dry on his sheep-skin diploma, was entered as an under graduate in a college ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... William—as old Bob named him—had no breath for idle words. Kirkwood subsided, controlling his impatience to the best of his ability; the men, he told himself again and again, were earning their pay, whether or not they gained the goal of his desire.... Their labors were titanic; on their temples and foreheads the knotted veins stood out like discolored whip-cord; their faces were the shade of raw beef, steaming with sweat; their eyes protruded with the strain that set their jaws ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance



Words linked to "Desire" :   aspiration, bloodlust, hunger, thirstiness, greed, physical attraction, longing, yearn, desirous, go for, like, craving, feeling, envy, materialism, lust after, wish, care, concupiscence, miss, seek, wishing, caprice, itch, arousal, philistinism, tendency, temptation, take to, fancy, eros, dream, rage, hungriness, long, hanker, call for, wish well, bespeak, thirst, lech after, whim, crave, inclination, begrudge, starve, request, urge, passion, quest, spoil, yearning, lust, ambition, feel like, impulse



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