"Wishful" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Aaron's thought he might have gone down to the world below to sit in the state assembly. From there in due time he might have gained promotion to the augmented dignities of Congress, but he had persistently waved aside the whispers of such temptation. "He hain't a wishful feller nohow," the stranger was always told, "despite thet he knows hist'ry an' sich like lore in an' ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... moment for eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket. The fright killed my mother. Before next spring she fell into a decline, and early next fall the old man—for he was an old man now—had to delve her grave. After this he went feebly about his work, but held on, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do as soon as I was fourteen, having outgrown ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... "glorious from his youth," like "an angel with winged feet"—all beauty, all goodness, all gentleness. He is also successful as a poet, his poem written at the age of twenty-three having been universally acclaimed. Making allowance for Mary's exaggeration and wishful thinking, we easily recognize Shelley: Woodville has his poetic ideals, the charm of his conversation, his high moral qualities, his sense of dedication and responsibility to those he loved and to all humanity. He is Mary's earliest portrait of her husband, drawn in ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... Shore, and Dan Scott, the agent from Seven Islands, who had brought the chief down in his chaloupe. Pichou did not understand what his master had been saying about him: but he thought he was called, and he had a sense of duty; and besides, he was wishful to show proper courtesy to well-dressed and respectable strangers. He was a great dog, thirty inches high at the shoulder; broad-chested, with straight, sinewy legs; and covered with thick, wavy, cream-coloured hair from the tips of his short ears ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... the two thoughts, which in any brief space of rest always recurred, calming down all annoyances, and raising her above the level of petty pains—Johanna and Robert Lyon. Under the influence of these her tired face grew composed, and there was a wishful, far away, fond look in her eyes, which made it not wonderful that the said old lady—apparently an acute old soul in her way—should watch her, as we do occasionally watch strangers in whom ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... of Watts' sings one of his most exalted visions. It has been dear for two hundred years to every Christian soul throbbing with millennial thoughts and wishful of the ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... From the Prison's direr gloom; From Poverty's heart-wasting languish: From Distemper's midnight anguish; Or where his two bright torches blending Love illumines Manhood's maze; Or where o'er cradled Infants bending Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze: ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... then I heard a little noise, an' I looked round, an' the sick man had rolled over an' was lookin' at me straight, an' when he ketched my eye, he says, "Come here, madam, please." 'Twas a real pleasant voice, though weak, an' I went right up to the bed. He looked at me real sharp, an' sort of wishful, and then he says, "You look ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... winter evenings were spent in reading. Lying on the wooden floor, he eagerly read page after page, by the light of the huge log fire which burned on the hearth. Before he was six years old he had read every book within his reach, and wanted more. Wishful to shorten the journey to school, Mrs. Garfield offered to give a piece of land on one corner of her farm, if her neighbours would put up a building on it. Those who lived near welcomed the project, and the schoolhouse ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... reach'd, where his lordship they found, Pale, stretch'd on a plank, like themselves out of breath, The coroner and jury were seated around, Most gravely enquiring the cause of his death. No haste did they seem in, their task to complete, Aware that from hurry mistakes often rise; Or wishful, perhaps, of prolonging the treat Of thus sitting in judgment ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... be happy, and each hour Of pain forget, cheered by the summer ray. These thoughts beguile my sorrow for thy loss, And, as the aged pines their dark heads toss, Oft steal the sense of solitude away. So am I sadly soothed, yet do I cast A wishful glance upon the seasons past, And think how different was the happy tide, When thou, with looks of love, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... in no wise angry, but rather wishful that I should be with him, and so I got off my horse and went. But it crossed my mind that Wulfnoth the earl liked not to be alone, and suddenly I remembered the way in which two of our Bures franklins had spoken to each other when ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... and yon as she looked back to answer Isabel's kindly questions; Isabel one moment half lost in the gloom of the trees, and then so lighted up again from foot to brow that it was easy to see the very lines of her winsome mouth, ripe for compassion or fortitude, yet wishful as a ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... kiss too, papa?" Lulu asked in a wishful, half-tremulous voice, as though a trifle uncertain whether her request would ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... but upon reconsideration think it will not do. 2. Marriage FIRST, Prince of Wales to Wilhelmina,—Consent with pleasure. 3. Marriage SECOND, Crown-Prince Friedrich with your Amelia,—for that also we are extremely wishful, and trust it will one day take effect: but first these Seville-Treaty matters, and differences between the Kaiser and allied English and French will require to be pulled straight; that done, we will treat about the terms ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... my pail into the passage I though it would be pre'aps jest as well if I was to come up 'ere an' ask you what sort of soap you was wishful that I should use on them boards. The yaller ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... showed the place, And tell its long-descended race. It seemed as if the breezes brought him, It seemed as if the sparrows taught him; As if by secret sight he knew Where, in far fields, the orchis grew. Many haps fall in the field Seldom seen by wishful eyes, But all her shows did Nature yield, To please and win this pilgrim wise. He saw the partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; He found the tawny thrushes' broods; And the shy hawk did ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... 'I've heard that talk too. If you listen to them West Country folk, you'll listen to a pack o' lies. I believe Frankie was born somewhere out west among the Shires, but his father had to run for it when Frankie was a baby, because the neighbours was wishful to kill him, d'ye see? He run to Chatham, old Parson Drake did, an' Frankie was brought up in a old hulks of a ship moored in the Medway river, same as it might ha' been the Rother. Brought up at sea, you might say, before he could walk on land—nigh Chatham ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... object with the keenest interest. It was a mere speck on the gray horizon, but it was plainly human, and evidently wishful to ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... now, sir. We've lived aboard here for a week, and to-night's the end of our honeymooning. If 'tis no liberty sir, Annie's wishful ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... never be made National; consequently, the Clergy of it could never acquire any considerable Power upon Earth. In Spirituals they were the Successors of the Apostles, but in Temporals they wanted to succeed the Pagan Priests, whose Possessions they look'd upon with wishful Eyes; and Worldly Strength and Authority being absolutely necessary to establish Dominion, it was agreed, that Christians might be Soldiers, and in a just War fight with the Enemies of their Country. But Experience ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... McQueen. "I'm coming around to the point of my tale gradual, like an old goat grazing around its tethering stump! I says to him, 'They look well enough, but I'm wishful to see them standing up on their own two legs. That one looks as if it might be a bit lame, and the cord so tight on it! And meanwhile, will you be having a bit of a drink on this ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... finished our pipeful together, an' he stands up an' says, 'Good luck to you, Andie, lad,' and I knew he was wishful to be alone. An' so, 'Good luck to you, Mister Linnell,' I says, an' we gave each other another long grup o' the hand. I was wantin' to tell him he was the best chief ever I worked under, but he wasn't ever the kind, you see, sir, to be praisin' to his face. ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... purring ways of a cat, the tact of a Jesuit, the penetration of a money-lender, the sensibility of a musical amateur, and the morals of a maid-of-honour. He had extraordinary command over himself; he seemed able to do everything, and wishful to win nothing. There never was a young man (as a matter of fact) who wanted so much or asked so little. It was the very boundlessness of his desires which reined him in. The appetite of the Caesars would not have represented his, all ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... an' Paul an' me agreed you wudn' be above acceptin' a little present o' this natur', not seemin' proud, an' Tamsin shou'd bring et hersel', the eggs bein' hers in a manner o' speakin'. But us was not wishful to introod, sir, an' iver since us seed the board here, her's been keepin' her distance in the boat yonder; on'y us stepped ashore to larn ef there was anything us cou'd do to make things ship-shape ...
— The Astonishing History of Troy Town • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... they enter). I had a mind to phone to your house, but I wasn't wishful to disturb you, knowin' you'd be comin' to ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... know. It's nerves, that's what it is.... Well, I've got to go through these." She fingered the papers on the dressing-table with her left hand while drying her tears with the right. "He's very wishful for proper accounts, George is. That's right enough. But—well—I think I can make a shilling go as far as anyone, and choose flesh-meat with anyone, too—that I will say—but these accounts...! George is always wanting to know how much it costs a head a week for this that ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... don't git many more of them idees right soon. I'm sure with you to the finish, but I ain't wishful ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... City on fiestas, all testify to the universality of the deep and tender feelings of reverence and affection which animate the human heart and make all men as one in thought and sentiment as they stand on time's shores and follow the receding forms of their kindred and friends with wishful eyes bedimmed with tears ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... no forgetting that compassion, its tearful concern and wistfulness. I was bewildered. More wishful beseeching must surely have softened a Deity with a sunburned nose and a double chin! Indeed, I was bewildered by this fantasy of weeping and nonsense. For the little break in her voice and the veil of tears upon ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... ever yet was seen, He only roared with laughter as he sat, Saying, 'twas so because you had no hat, You know I charged you to remember that. I tried to laugh but 'twas of little use After such diabolical abuse, But calming down at last I cheerful rose, Wishful, in private, to survey my nose, To see if any skin were left there now, And what the state of my disordered brow. So, hastening to my room with Hal, I found All there so cosily arranged around, That in my admiration I forgot The consequences of my ill-starred lot Why, what ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... general warning, I was wishful to consult Eveena, and unwilling to withhold from her any secret of my thoughts; but equally averse to disturb her with alarms that were trying even to nerves seasoned by the varied experience of twenty years ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... been useful to him, and they profited by the circumstance that the Raid had estranged him from his former friends to strengthen their own influence upon him, and to persuade him that those who had deplored the rash act were personal enemies, wishful for ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... of the Maccabees.[665] Accordingly, we find them, at a very remote period, not merely anxious to inter their dead decently and carefully in rock tombs or subterranean chambers of massive stone, but also wishful upon occasions to attract attention to the last resting-places of their great men, by constructions which showed themselves above the ground, and had some architectural pretensions. One of these, situated near Amrith, the ancient Marathus, ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Peake," said Big James, crossing the floor, "and here's a young gent wishful for two ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... finally replied, "save only hit denotes thet ye're either p'intedly wishful ter throw yore life away—or else ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... at which Phoebe had looked on with wishful eyes, Lucilla dropped breathless into the chair which she relinquished ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... resent all interference, and she did not anticipate an easy task. She did not like to discuss the question much with her father and mother. They seemed so pained at the thought that the two girls should not agree, and so wishful that their schooldays should bring them nearer together, that she determined not to mention the subject again, and could only hope that her fears might not be fulfilled. What the future held in store for her, and what experiences she was to encounter in her new ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... pleasant gale, that to the sun unplaits And spreads the gold Love's fingers weave, and braid O'er her fine eyes, and all around her head, Fetters my heart, the wishful sigh creates: No nerve but thrills, no artery but beats, Approaching my fair arbiter with dread, Who in her doubtful scale hath ofttimes weigh'd Whether or death or life on me awaits; Beholding, too, those eyes their fires display, And on those shoulders shine such ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch |
